>From the pages of the "Scientific American" comes the tale of one of the
first controlled experiments in clinical nutrition, one which addressed the
scrourge of scurvy among sailors who were sea-bound for months at a time.
<http://www.sciam.com/1999/0399issue/0399connections.html>
Some extracts from this story run thus:
<In May 1747, on the good ship Salisbury, Lind carried out probably the first
proper controlled trial in
the history of clinical nutrition. For 14 days, he kept six pairs of scurvy
patients on the same diet but
gave each pair different medicine: cider, elixir vitriol, vinegar, seawater,
a "medicinal paste" and
oranges with lemons. The citrus fruit did the trick. In 1753 Lind published
"A Treatise of the Scurvy,"
as a result of which, years later, the Royal Navy started issuing lime-juice
rations to sailors. Who then
never got scurvy but had to put up with being called "limeys."
Lind had been inspired to his researches by the shock of news of a naval
expedition gone horribly
wrong. In 1740 Commodore George Anson had sailed from England with six ships
and more than
1,000 men. His mission: to head for the Pacific and clobber the Spanish
wherever he found them. He
did so, in spades, attacking Spanish ports and ships, laying waste right and
left in the usual manner. He
came home four years later with so much treasure it took 30 wagons to haul it
from the docks to the
Tower of London for safekeeping. Every man walked off Anson's mission rich
for life. There was a lot
more booty for each man to share because of the original six ships and 1,000
crew, only one ship with
145 men made it back. Scurvy had killed the rest.>
And here is a website which quotes part of the original scientific
publication, entitled James Lind "A Treatise of the Scurvy in Three Parts.
Containing an inquiry into the Nature, Causes and Cure of that Disease,
together with a Critical and Chronological View of what has been published on
the subject." A. Millar, London, 1753:
<http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/scurvy.html>
Its conclusions? Read on:
>As I shall have occasion elsewhere to take notice of the effects of other
medicines in this disease, I shall here only observe that the result of all
my experiments was that oranges and lemons were the most effectual remedies
for this distemper at sea. I am apt to think oranges preferable to lemons,
though it was principally oranges which so speedily and surprisingly
recovered Lord Anson's people at the Island of Tinian, of which that noble,
brave and experienced commander was so sensible that before he left the
island one man was ordered on shore from each mess to lay in a stock of them
for their future security. … Perhaps one history more may suffice to
put this out of doubt.>
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Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
http://www.egroups.com/group/supertraining
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