Zhuang Shili and Doctor Lilac Author: Sennuo Senior Medical Consultant Master of Neuroscience, Hokkaido University In the autumn of 1716, a boy named James Lind was born into a merchant family in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In 1739, at the age of 23, shortly after graduating from medical school, Lind joined the Royal Navy as a surgeon's assistant and served in the Mediterranean, the West African coast, and the West Indies.

A further 19 years later he was appointed Chief Physician to the Royal Naval Hospital.

James Lind, 1716~1794, surgeon of the British Royal Navy. Image source: Wikipedia. Dr. Lind is considered the founder of British naval medicine.

As someone who has been on the same warship with naval officers all year round, he knows the living habits of the navy very well.

He suggested strengthening ventilation on ships, fumigating decks to maintain hygiene, obtaining fresh water by distilling seawater, and requiring everyone to maintain good hygiene habits to avoid typhus. These measures greatly improved the health of naval officers - the 18th century

The sanitary conditions may be unimaginable to you today.

However, the most impressive thing about Dr. Linde lies in two points: first, he was the first doctor to prove that citrus fruits can prevent and treat scurvy; second, he conducted the first clinical case in human history.

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During the Age of Discovery, Britain, known as the "Empire on which the Sun Never Sets," although its mainland area was not large, its territory spanned six continents except Antarctica. With its powerful naval fleet, Britain became the world's number one colonial power.

, British navy and sailors can be found all over the world.

The territory of the British Empire in the 18th century. However, with the rise of ocean voyages, the biggest threat that crews had to face was not other countries’ armies and pirates, but a disease that caused ulcers at the corners of the mouth, receded gums and bleeding skin - bad

blood disease.

During the circumnavigation of the world led by British Admiral George Anson from 1740 to 1744, three-quarters of the two thousand crew members died, most of them from scurvy.

At that time, the number of non-combat casualties caused by scurvy in Britain even exceeded the number of casualties in the war between the Royal Navy and France and Spain.

At the time, no one knew why scurvy occurred, and no one knew how to treat it.

In the process of treating patients with scurvy, Dr. Linde noticed that the number of sailors suffering from the disease was far more than that of officers.

Another fact he observed was that senior officers could eat a small amount of fruits and vegetables on board, but ordinary sailors could only nibble on bread and kippers.

So he thought there might be something in the officers' diet that could cure scurvy.

Mere guesses are not enough. Only by confirming the guesses can we save lives.

Dr. Linde pioneered an unprecedented method at the time. He divided 12 sailors with scurvy into 6 groups, with 2 people in each group. The 6 groups of sailors had the same normal diet every day, but each group ate something extra.

: The first group, each person drank 1 quart (about 1.13 liters) of apple cider per day; the second group, each person drank 25 drops of dilute sulfuric acid (you read that right); the third group, each person drank 6 spoons of vinegar per day

; The fourth group, each person drank half a pint (about 0.28 liters) of sea water per day; the fifth group, each person ate 2 oranges and 1 lemon per day; the sixth group, each person ate 1 cup of barley water with hot sauce per day

.

It was found that the two sailors in the fifth group had basically recovered and could return to work after 5 days of treatment, while the other groups continued to worsen or had little effect.

Based on the experimental results, he believed that eating citrus fruits was an effective way to treat scurvy.

Dr. Linde's experiment was the prototype of all today's randomized controlled trials. After returning home, Dr. Linde published the famous paper "Treatise of the Scurvy" (On Scurvy), suggesting that the Navy should improve the daily life of sailors.

Offer lemon juice concentrate or other citrus foods in your diet.

But the British Admiralty did not believe his suggestion at first, and in an era when food preservation methods were limited, the cost of such dietary supplements was also quite high.

It was not until decades later, after more facts proved effective, that the British Admiralty adopted his suggestions, gradually freeing naval officers from the threat of scurvy.