Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) appear to have solved the 120-year-old mystery surrounding the failing health of famed Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton over the course of his daring expeditions to Antarctica in the early part of the twentieth century. In a paper published online in the Journal of Medical Biography, the team moved beyond past theories of congenital heart defect and scurvy advanced by physicians and historians to conclude that the British explorer suffered from beriberi, a serious and potentially life-threatening condition caused by a deficiency of the nutrient thiamine.
“Historians have traditionally looked at Shackleton’s symptoms in isolation and speculated about their cause,” says lead author Paul Gerard Firth, MD, head of the Division of Community and Global Health in the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at…
