The sailors included this problem in their logbooks, where they made great discoveries and wrote about their epic voyages that lasted months or even years.
In fact, a lot of seafood was caught in their nets, but they had to throw them all back.
The crew would not eat the different fish caught in their nets.
Thanks to the experience they had, they knew how dangerous the idea of ”I would eat my father if he came out of the sea” was. They had witnessed that if different fish were eaten, dozens of deaths could occur in the crew.
They tested whether the fish they caught were edible by various methods.
Spanish sailors, known for their religious obsession, first dipped the fish they caught in holy water and then put silver crosses or silver coins on them. If the silver tarnished, the fish could be determined to be poisonous.
Other sailors were leaving flies and insects on the fish they put on the deck. If flies and insects did not land on the fish, this meant that the fish were poisonous.
In fact, it was not known exactly why those who died from eating fish died until the 19th century.
The earliest mention of deaths after eating fish dates back to the 7th century BC. Imperial healers in ancient China knew that fish were the cause of death, but it could not be proven that fish were poisonous.
In 1886, a Cuban doctor detected poison in fish during his research after a fatal case. He saw that the poison was contained in the tissues and muscles of the fish.
The poison is actually a substance found in plankton. Although the fish eat these plankton, they are not badly affected, the poisonous substance is stored in the fish’s body, and the poison rate increases as the fish grows. This toxin does not disappear no matter how long the fish is cooked.
An hour after the toxin enters the human body, complaints of headache and stomachache increase. Diarrhea and vomiting occur as the body tries to fight the poison. If the situation worsens, serious problems are experienced in the heart and respiratory system. It can even cause death if not treated promptly.
Poisonous seafood wasn’t the main reason the sailors suffered from starvation.
It is very difficult to find life in some parts of the ocean and sailors often had to continue their voyages from there. These areas are concentrated in the center of tropical climates. Here the westerly winds and the easterly winds collide and change places. For this reason, the winds are not strong because there are loops here. Because of these weak winds, sailors advanced very slowly, and their supplies could run out in these areas.
This calmness also affects aquatic organisms.
The creatures living in these areas are in the oligotrophic group. Because important elements such as hydrogen and phosphorus are not found in the upper layer of the ocean, they only come from the deep. This means less lively life.
When we examine the maps of the explorers, we can see that most of the ships passed through these points in the oceans.
In these regions, they were almost in the middle of a desert from the sea.
Also, simply eating fish could have badly affected sailors. Only protein-focused nutrition harms the kidneys, and if other necessary vitamins and minerals are not taken for a long time, it can even cause death.
Sources: 1, 2
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