The Wikipedia entry on tin pest mentions the claim that the 1910 Scott expedition to the South Pole may have been doomed by Tin pest (just as Napoleon’s army was). The Scott party, returning from the pole after discovering that Amundsen had beaten them there, found empty kerosene cans at their first cache. The cans had been soldered with tin. Was it poor quality soldering or did the tin phase transition do them in? Once again, this makes a great story, but is possibly apocryphal. The wikipedia entry goes on to say:
The likely cause of death for Scott’s polar party was some combination of scurvy, gangrene, starvation, dehydration, and hypothermia.
