ABSTRACT
James Lind’s treatment for scurvy is one of the first trials recorded that comes close to present-day clinical trials. However, even if Lind realised that two oranges and one lemon a day were superior to any other treatment for scurvy, it was to take almost 50 years before the Royal Navy supplied its ships with lemon juice for prophylactic purposes. Another couple of hundred years would pass before the first known controlled doubleblind study was performed in the 1940s, when Austin Bradford Hill (1951) directed a study testing a pertussis vaccine.
