Lind's Scurvy Trial on HMS Salisbury

During a ten-week cruise of HMS Salisbury, 80 of her 350 men came down with scurvy. The ship's surgeon, James Lind, had many proposed remedies to choose from and no way of telling which of them worked.

On 20 May 1747, with the Salisbury at sea on blockade in the English Channel, he took twelve patients whose cases were as alike as he could find: rotten gums, spots on the skin, exhaustion and weak knees. They lay together in the fore-hold and ate the same food, sweetened water-gruel in the morning, mutton broth or puddings at midday, and barley, rice or sago in the evening. Each pair then got one extra treatment: a quart of cider a day, elixir of vitriol, vinegar, two oranges and a lemon, or a paste of garlic, mustard seed, horseradish, balsam of Peru and myrrh. The two worst cases drank half a pint of sea water a day.

The fruit ran out after six days, but by then the result was plain. One of the two men given oranges and lemons was fit for duty on the sixth day, and the other recovered well enough to be put to nursing the rest of the sick. Lind judged the cider next best.

He left the navy, studied at the University of Edinburgh for his professional qualifications, and in 1753 published A Treatise of the Scurvy, which also reviewed what earlier writers had said about the disease. It was translated into German, Dutch, French and Italian. The Admiralty did not act on it. Lemon juice was not a new idea, and Lind himself also recommended vegetables and a lemon preparation called rob. Only in 1795, after Gilbert Blane pressed the case, did the Admiralty agree to supply citrus to its ships.