The year was 1747. The doctor on board the Salisbury, Dr. James Lindt, upset with the high number of deaths by scurvy among the mariners, planned and conducted a study comparing different therapeutic approaches. Described in his “Treatise of the Scurvy”, published in Edinburgh in 1753, his study is considered to be the first controlled clinical trial in the modern era. But the history goes even further. Clearly, without the requirements of a controlled clinical trial, the experiment, conducted during […]