Reply To: Seafaring Diet – salt content and skin complaints, such as boils

[Sam Willis]

This comes from Rick Spilman:

From all that I have read (and a bit that I have experienced) the boils
suffered by sailors tended to be related to chafing of clothes and foul
weather gear, which never really dried due to the constant immersion and
the hygroscopic nature of salt. The body and soul lashings tied to keep
sleeves and pant legs closed to the wind and water seemed to be a cause of
a lot of the chafing. There accounts from modern sources, presumably with
lower sail diets that point to chafe and salt water immersion as the cause
of boils. The Robertsons (of “Survive the Savage Sea” fame) had problems
with boils as did the survivors of the sinking of the Pride if Baltimore.

Reading about high salt diets, I haven’t seen any indications of boils as
side effect. Boils can be caused by a blockage of the sweat glands in a
condition called Hidradenitis Suppurativa, but diet doesn’t seem to be
listed as a cause.

As an aside, related to chafing, salt water sores are a big problem for
long distance rowers. A female team rowing across the the Indian Ocean
earned some publicity a few years ago when they announced that they would
be rowing naked as much as possible to avoid sores. Male rowers apparently
have a particular problem with chafing sores on their testicles. On one
coed rowing team, a female rower, who was also a nurse, was responsible for
tending to boils and sores. At the end of the race, she commented that she
had seen ‘enough male dangly bits to last a lifetime.’

http://www.oldsaltblog.com/2011/02/ocean-rowing-chafe-nudity-and-intimate-sores/