The nineteenth-century crew-health lesson still mattered in 1940

What important nineteenth-century lesson did the Royal Navy still use during the Second World War?

Protecting crew health remained essential, even requiring wartime efforts to secure lime juice.

Crew health remained a major lesson carried forward from the nineteenth-century Royal Navy. Medical knowledge did not remove the logistical need to supply the foods and provisions that kept sailors fit. During the Second World War the service still had to seek out lime juice to protect crew health. The brief example connects naval medicine to procurement and victualling: a healthy fleet depends on supply systems as well as doctors and regulations.