James Lind's Epidemiological Study

James Lind, a Scottish Surgeon, played a significant role in the understanding that experimental studies could be used to test theorems of affected mortality. Born in Edinburgh, his previous apprenticeship at the Edinburgh College of Surgeons lead him into his own practice of discovering the remedy for scurvy as it was killing more soldiers of the Royal Navy than enemy action (Milne, 2004). Lind’s epidemiological study presented that the use of citrus fruits had the ability to treat scurvy. Epidemiological studies can be established as either observational or experimental. While observational studies are considered natural experiments, James Lind used an experimental study to consider a true outcome (Htway, 2016). His conducted observation to deal with the treatment of scurvy, a disease cause by deficiency of Vitamin C, proposed him to use subjects who currently had similar cases of scurvy. Symptoms resulting from the deficiency included the swelling of gums and continual damage to open wounds.

One of his main focuses was to prove that scurvy was not hereditary or an infectious disease. He believed it was instead due to dietary constraints. On the 20th of May, 1747, Lind took twelve patients on board the Salisbury Sea where all twelve of them had a continued diet of water-gruel sweetened with sugar, mutton-broth, pudding, biscuits with sugar, etc. Each study group was made up of two patients who were given a different addition to their daily diet. These additions included a quart of cyder, spoonfuls of vinegar three times a day, sea water, oranges with lemon, twenty-five guts of elixir vitriol three times a day and nutmeg three times a day. (Aschengrau & Seage,