**5. Diet, vitamins and infections<sup>9</sup>**

Malnutrition was clearly another factor contributing to the immune problems of St Kildans. The church ministers, who were usually the only literate members of the society, gave broad details of the islanders' food sources and diet, although none gave a detailed year-round description of their daily consumption of vegetables or other food, so the average daily intake of vitamins is uncertain. There are no laboratory studies that assessed nutrient levels in the islanders. Staff-Surgeon Scott, who visited St Kilda in 1887, detected rheumatism, dyspepsia, anaemia, childhood palpitations and incipient scurvy. The islanders' diet of flesh and eggs, with a lack of fruit and vegetables, was deficient in vitamin C and probably in the B group vitamins.

In 1912, after a severe winter Dougal MacLean, the island missionary, reported that the population had survived on tea, bread and butter for months. The islanders devoted time mainly to catching seabirds and collecting their eggs, secondly to attending to cattle and sheep and lastly to tending the limited arable land. Sheep and a few cattle were slaughtered for food only on special occasions. The St Kildans did not rotate crops nor leave areas fallow for a season. The arable land was a maximum of eighty acres and naturally poor, with thin stony topsoil and poor drainage. They destroyed large areas of potential farm land by stripping turf near the village for fires, rather than collecting peat from further away. Crops were mainly barley, oats and potatoes, but also sea-plants, dulse, (an edible seaweed), silverweed roots, dock, sorrel, scurvy-grass, rhubarb, turnips and cabbages. Peas and beans flowered without produce. Fruits were clearly a rarity.

Fig. 10. Cultivated land

228 Biodiversity Loss in a Changing Planet

Malnutrition was clearly another factor contributing to the immune problems of St Kildans. The church ministers, who were usually the only literate members of the society, gave broad details of the islanders' food sources and diet, although none gave a detailed year-round description of their daily consumption of vegetables or other food, so the average daily intake of vitamins is uncertain. There are no laboratory studies that assessed nutrient levels in the islanders. Staff-Surgeon Scott, who visited St Kilda in 1887, detected rheumatism, dyspepsia, anaemia, childhood palpitations and incipient scurvy. The islanders' diet of flesh and eggs, with a lack of fruit and vegetables, was deficient in vitamin C and probably in the

In 1912, after a severe winter Dougal MacLean, the island missionary, reported that the population had survived on tea, bread and butter for months. The islanders devoted time mainly to catching seabirds and collecting their eggs, secondly to attending to cattle and sheep and lastly to tending the limited arable land. Sheep and a few cattle were slaughtered for food only on special occasions. The St Kildans did not rotate crops nor leave areas fallow for a season. The arable land was a maximum of eighty acres and naturally poor, with thin stony topsoil and poor drainage. They destroyed large areas of potential farm land by stripping turf near the village for fires, rather than collecting peat from further away. Crops were mainly barley, oats and potatoes, but also sea-plants, dulse, (an edible seaweed),

Fig. 9. Deserted house

B group vitamins.

**5. Diet, vitamins and infections<sup>9</sup>**

Fig. 11. St Kilda cliffs, a food source

Limited Bio-Diversity and Other Defects of

*her child a strange indisposition to take the breast.'* 

Graph 1. day of death

the Immune System in the Inhabitants of the Islands of St Kilda, Scotland 231

He noted thirty-three of the recorded 64 island deaths between July 1830 and September 1840 were attributed to the 'eight-day sickness'. Morgan spoke to the midwife, Betty Scott, who had herself lost 12 out of 14 of her own children to this condition about the clinical

*'At the time of birth, there was no appreciable physical inferiority on the part of those infants who were so prematurely and suddenly selected as a prey. They were all proper bairns, and so continued till about the fifth or sixth day. The mother's eye might then not infrequently observe on the part of* 

1830–39 61 35 57% 1840–49 5 – – 1850–59 11 5 45% 1860–69 29 20 69% 1870–79 28 14 50% 1880-89 27 14 52% 1890–99 25 6 24% 1900–09 15 2 13% 1910–19 17 1 6% 1920–29 7 0 0%

**28 days** 

**mortality rate %** 

features. Scott excluded any obvious congenital problem stating:-

**Date Live births No of Neonatal deaths in** 

Table 1. Figures from the Island and District Registers (incomplete 1840–56)

The major source of food was the gannet and fulmar, caught on the cliffs and consumed either as eggs or as young birds, both fresh and cured. Boiling was the usual method of cooking all meals, which would have further reduced the vitamin C content.

Fishing was important, but at times was impossible due to the unpredictable weather and heavy seas. Much of the St Kildans' food produce, including most of their agricultural crops, was paid as rent and taken to Harris or consumed by visitors, leaving a nutritionally limited diet of seabirds, eggs, fish and the less nutritious vegetables for the islanders.

Studies of Ascorbic acid supplements have shown some benefit in the treatment of respiratory infections, particularly in patients with more severe illness and pre-existing low vitamin C levels. Tetanus was another serious problem on St Kilda, and vitamin C deficiency may have contributed to the high death rate. A study has shown that the addition of 1,000 mg ascorbic acid to the standard therapy of anti-tetanus serum, sedatives and antibiotics reduced the mortality in children aged one to 12 years. 9
