 watercress (662 mg vitamin C per 100 g)—on wet blankets.This was actually put in practice, and in the winter of 1775 the British Army in North America was supplied with mustard and cress seeds.However Lind, like most of the medical profession, believed that scurvy was essentially a result of ill-digested and putrefying food within the body, bad water, excessive work and living in a damp atmosphere which prevented healthful perspiration.