CME INDIA Presentation by ⚜ Dr. M. Gowri Sankar, MD, Senior Assistant Professor, Dept. of General Medicine, Government Medical College and ESI Hospital, Coimbatore.
Today’s History Feature:
James Lind
(Oct 4, 1716 – Jul 13, 1794)
💠Scottish Physician
💠Pioneer of Naval Hygiene
His contributions…
🔸After completion of school, Lind was apprenticed to a physician for a while. Then he got an opportunity to enter into the Navy field as a companion of surgeon.
🔸Further, his curiosity led him to study medicine. He received his medical graduation from the University of Edinburg Medical School in 1748 and became a Fellow of Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1750.
🔸During his sea voyage in Royal Navy, he noticed that sailors were severely affected by Scurvy which was a deadly disease and occurred as they sailed for long in the sea.
🔸Then he started his well-known clinical trial among a group of sailors affected by scurvy to find a cause and an effective treatment for cure on May 20, 1747.
🔸He did his clinical trial among 12 scurvy affected sailors. He had experimented with six different therapies such as cider, vinegar, barley water, elixir of vitriol, sea water and lemon & oranges.
🔸After consistent effort, he found that the group fed with lemon & orange juice had the positive effect and recovered completely from scurvy in a short period of six days.
🔸Lind’s discovery was one of the First reported controlled clinical trials in the history of medicine. Therefore, he is recognized as the First Modern Clinical Investigator.
🔸Consequently, he published the following books…
🔅A treatise of the Scurvy.
🔅An essay on the most effectual means of preserving the health of the sea men.
🔅An essay on diseases incidental to Europeans in hot climates.
🔸Subsequently, he investigated about the health benefits of sailors and paved a new way for preventive medicine by giving them proper ventilation, clean living conditions, fumigation and preparation of fresh water by distilling sea water.
🔸His marvellous work led to the conquest of scurvy, development of naval hygiene and the growth of tropical medicine. He was then titled as “Hippocrates of Naval Medicine.“
🔸To honour his famous trial, the International Clinical Trials Day is celebrated around the world on or near May 20 each year.
A Day to Commemorate…
A Physician Who Paved the Way to Cure Scurvy
James Lind 🙏
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Do we celebrate clinical trial day, 20 May in India? I can’t recollect.
Salute to Hippocrates of Naval Medicine 🙏🏽🙏🏽