A Killer Disease and the Cure Cartier Lost   

        A baneful disease, as Jacques Cartier called it, ravaged the 110 Frenchmen living in icebound ships near Stadacona (Quebec) in the winter of 1535 - 1536.  They knew neither what it was or how to combat it.

        Cartier wrote that "a pestilence...wholly unknown to us" spread among the French: "...their legs became swollen and puffed up...Then the disease would creep up to the hips, thighs and shoulders, arms and neck...the flesh peeled off down to the roots of their teeth while the latter almost fell out in turn."

        The French offered prayers and performed an autopsy for clues to the cause of the disease.  At one time, "on all our three ships there were not three men in good health."  Twenty-five died: some were buried in snow, for the "ground was frozen hard and we were too feeble and exhausted to dig into it."

        Cartier and his men were  "in desperate fear lest the Indians should realize our plight and helplessness."  But from the Indians, in early spring, they learned of a cure: "They told us how to strip off the bark and leaves from a certain tree, boil them in water, and drink the liquor every other day while placing the dregs on swollen and afflicted legs."  The tree, which Cartier called the annedda - the Eastern White Cedar (photo at right) - "did us so much good that all those who consented to use it were cured and recovered their health, thanks be to God."

        And then the cure was lost - for Cartier never told how to identify the annedda.

        A century later Samuel de Champlain wrote of "the disease which preyed upon us as fiercely as it had preyed upon him."  He knew of Cartier's annedda but not what it was.  Nor, apparently, was the cure known to the Indians whom Champlain encountered in 1604.  Because of scurvy, the king refused to finance colonization between 1609 and 1612.

            Eastern White Cedar