How They Croaked

Explorer

Born: Genoa, Italy, between August and October 1451

Died: Valladolid, Spain, May 20, 1506 54 years old

AT SEA, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS had the magic touch. But on land, not so much. All he talked about was his dream to head east to the Orient, but he wanted to sail west to get there. Not a smart idea. Most people already thought the world was roundish, but what about all that upside-down water on the other side? Why on earth would he want to search for land by sailing in the wrong direction, eating bad food, and sleeping all squished in a tiny cabin? Everybody thought Columbus had sprung a leak. But Columbus had determination, and he was just nutty enough to attempt the stupidest idea anyone had ever heard. People with big dreams don’t care where they sleep.

Columbus was born in Italy. He moved to Portugal, got married, had two sons, and tried to get the Portuguese royals there to bankroll his dream—but they said no. Columbus was so annoyed, he moved to Spain. For eight years, he pestered King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to give him money to go exploring. Columbus had a plan: everything he discovered would belong to Spain, but he would get 10 percent of all the gold and spices.

In 1492, one hundred men jammed into three ships: the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María. Columbus was forty-one years old. Things like a telescope, sunglasses, brimmed hats, and potties aboard ship hadn’t been invented yet, so they headed west into unmapped waters short a bunch of basic stuff.

Some thought the trip would take three years, but Columbus was better than anyone at the helm of a ship. He read the wind, stared at the sun, and squinted at the horizon for only thirty-three days before he spotted land. It wasn’t the Orient but it was land, and Columbus claimed it for Spain. He called it Hispaniola. The clothing-optional natives he encountered had gold rings in their noses—a very good sign. Columbus sailed home.

In Spain, that crazy Columbus was now a hero. Ferdinand and Isabella let him lead a second voyage, with seventeen ships, back to Hispaniola to drop off fifteen hundred men to start digging for gold.

But Columbus felt lousy en route. He had diarrhea, which wasn’t exactly a picnic at sea. Going to the bathroom aboard ship meant hanging your butt off a plank out over the water, then wiping with a piece of rope dangling nearby. Poop germs got on everybody’s hands, and since they used their hands to eat, it created a perfect storm of infections. Exposure to damp, chilly air for months on end made Columbus’s joints stiff, swollen, and so painful he couldn’t walk. He kept sailing around as best he could, but he couldn’t find the Orient, and no one found any gold, either.

When Columbus sailed back to Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella were not happy with the news.

Columbus got out his knee pads again and begged for more time to find the Orient. But by now it seemed like Columbus couldn’t find anything. His eyes were bloody from strain and sun exposure. His sea legs were gone because the shipboard diet of salted beef, pickled sardines, and wine had given him gout, which made his feet swell. He was a shipwreck himself.

In spite of this, Columbus got funding to go on more voyages. He found the New World by landing in Venezuela. But he couldn’t see it or step foot on it himself because his vision was blurry and spotted with dark blobs, and he was hunched over with arthritis. His hands looked like claws, and the sunlight aggravated his swollen, bleeding eyes. A cabin was built specially for him on the main deck because he could barely navigate his own body. The ship was a floating bed for Columbus.

Even though Columbus was crippled and sailing blind, he and his crew found land at the site where the Panama Canal would be built centuries later. The Pacific Ocean was only thirty-two miles away on the other side of the land. Columbus would have liked that; the Pacific Ocean could take him to the Orient. But it was too late. As if things weren’t bad enough, Columbus caught malaria, a disease spread by mosquitoes. He had chills, a fever, and difficulty breathing. His navigational antennae were all but broken, causing him and his crew to get shipwrecked in Jamaica. It took a year before one of his men safely canoed to Hispaniola and arranged a rescue.

Almost dead, Columbus barely made it back to Spain. He moved into a monastery where he was taken care of by friars, who couldn’t refuse anyone, even crazy sailors. Columbus worked on the plans for his next voyage. But that would be just a dream.

Columbus died on May 20, 1506; he was fifty-four years old. No one came to his funeral. It didn’t get mentioned in the newspaper. Isabella was dead, and Ferdinand had no intention of paying Columbus’s 10 percent to his family, so no one was allowed even to say Columbus’s name. His family eventually sold off all his maps and letters.

Columbus wasn’t given credit for finding the New World. Amerigo Vespucci was a passenger on a trip to the New World in 1499. He wrote a book claiming he had discovered it, which was a big fat lie. A mapmaker read his book, and he named the New World “America” after Amerigo. That name stuck like glue. At least the mapmaker didn’t name it “Vespucca.”

History forgot about Columbus for three hundred years. In the 1800s, the king of Spain took Columbus’s logbooks out of the royal archives, and Columbus finally got credit for finding the New World.

Over the years, Columbus’s remains took a few voyages, too. First he was buried in Spain. Then records show that his family took his remains to Hispaniola, the island that today holds the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Years later, his body was taken to Cuba. These countries all still claim to have Columbus’s bones.

By doing DNA tests on his bones, scientists confirmed that at least some of Columbus’s remains are in Spain. Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic declined to have their Columbus caches tested.

Recently, doctors have concluded from Columbus’s symptoms that he died of Reiter’s syndrome. It’s a rare disease people get from living in tight quarters where there is bad hygiene—a disease that some soldiers, sailors, and marines still get today. It starts with dysentery and then attacks the eyes, joints, and urinary tract.

If you have a dream, and it’s in your guts to do it, don’t worry if there might be tight quarters, and don’t take no for an answer. But don’t forget the soap.

IN 1564, THE DUTCH NOTICED that eating oranges made symptoms disappear. Two hundred years later a Scottish surgeon noticed that all citrus fruits did the same.

In 1795, the British Royal Navy added lime juice to daily rations, which is why British sailors are nicknamed “limeys.”

In 1928, vitamin C was identified in all citrus fruits. Sailors with scurvy lacked vitamin C.

SCURVY

is a disease that killed more than 100,000 sailors at sea. The symptoms are extreme exhaustion, bleeding gums, and death.

GOUT IS CAUSED BY A deposit of sharp crystals in the joints. The crystals form when there’s an abnormally high concentration of uric acid in the blood.

Crystals are minute, splinter-sharp fragments that can form overnight, followed by shivering and fever. They most often attack the big toe, but the heel, the calf, and the ankle are also targets. Half of gout sufferers have kidney stones, too.

FAMOUS GOUT SUFFERERS

Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Theodore Roosevelt

150 AD	1492	1507	1677
Ptolemy drew twenty-six maps with India where America is. That’s why Columbus thought he had reached India (when he had actually discovered a new place not on any map) and why Native Americans were called Indians.	First globe of earth, missing the soon-to-be-discovered Americas and the Pacific Ocean	First map showing the Americas	First known published map of the English colonies in North America