James Lind

James Lind

Lind was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1716 into a family of merchants, then headed by his father, James Lind. He had an elder sister.^[4] He was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh.^{[citation needed]}

In 1731 he began his medical studies as an apprentice of George Langlands,

Scurvy is a disease caused by a vitamin C deficiency, but in Lind's day, the concept of vitamins was unknown. Vitamin C is necessary for healthy connective tissue. In 1740 the catastrophic result of then-Commodore George Anson's circumnavigation attracted much attention in Europe; out of 1900 men, 1400 died, most of them allegedly from scurvy. According to Lind, scurvy caused more deaths in the British fleets than French and Spanish arms.^[7]

Since antiquity in some parts of the world, and since the 17th century in England, it had been known that

Lind thought that scurvy was due to putrefaction of the body that could be helped by acids, so he included an acidic dietary supplement in the experiment. This began after two months at sea when the ship was afflicted with scurvy. He divided twelve scorbutic sailors into six groups of two. They all received the same diet, but in addition group one was given a quart of cider daily, group two twenty-five drops of elixir of vitriol (sulfuric acid), group three six spoonfuls of vinegar, group four half a pint of seawater, group five two oranges and one lemon, and the last group a spicy paste plus a drink of barley water. The treatment of group five stopped after six days when they ran out of fruit, but by that time one sailor was fit for duty while the other had almost recovered. Apart from that, only group one showed any effect from its treatment.^{[citation needed]}

Shortly after this experiment, Lind retired from the Navy and practised privately as a physician. In 1753, he published A treatise of the scurvy,^[11] that was mostly ignored. In 1758, he was appointed chief physician of the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar at Gosport. When James Cook went on his first voyage he carried wort (0.1 mg vitamin C per 100 g), sauerkraut (10–15 mg per 100 g) and a syrup, or "rob", of oranges and lemons (the juice contains 40–60 mg of vitamin C per 100 g) as antiscorbutics, but only the results of the trials on wort were published. In 1762 Lind's Essay on the most effectual means of preserving the health of seamen appeared.^[12] In it he recommended growing salad—i.e. watercress (43 mg vitamin C per 100 g)^[13]—on wet blankets. This was put into practice, and in the winter of 1775 the British Army in North America was supplied with mustard and cress seeds. However Lind, like most of the medical profession, believed that scurvy came from ill-digested and putrefying food within the body, bad water, excessive work, and living in a damp atmosphere that prevented healthful perspiration. Thus, while he recognised the benefits of citrus fruit (although he weakened the effect by switching to a boiled concentrate or "rob", in which the boiling process destroys vitamin C), he never advocated citrus juice as a single solution. He believed that scurvy had multiple causes which therefore required multiple remedies.^[14]

The medical establishment ashore continued to believe that scurvy was a disease of putrefaction, curable by the administration of elixir of vitriol, infusions of wort and other remedies designed to 'ginger up' the system. It could not account for the effect of citrus fruits and so dismissed the evidence of them as unproven and anecdotal. In the Navy however, experience had convinced many officers and surgeons that citrus juices provided the answer to scurvy, even if the reason was unknown. On the insistence of senior officers, led by Rear Admiral

Lind noticed that typhus disappeared from the top floor of his hospital, where patients were bathed and given clean clothes and bedding. However, incidence was very high on the lower floors where such measures were not in place. Lind recommended that sailors be stripped, shaved, scrubbed, and issued clean clothes and bedding regularly. Thereafter, British seamen did not suffer from typhus, giving the British navy a significant advantage over the French.^[18]

In the 18th century ships took along water, cordial and milk in casks. According to the Regulations and Instructions relating to His Majesty's Service at Sea, which had been published in 1733 by the Admiralty, sailors were entitled to a

A frigate with 240 men, with stores for four months, carried more than one hundred tons of drinkable liquid. Water quality depended on its source, the condition of casks and for how long it had been kept. In normal times, sailors were not allowed to take any water away. When water was scarce, it was rationed and rain collected with spread sails. Fresh water was also obtained when possible en voyage, but watering places were often marshy, and in the tropics infested with malaria.^{[citation needed]}

In 1759, Lind discovered that steam from heated salt water was fresh. He proposed to use solar energy for the distillation of water. But only when a new type of cooking stove was introduced in 1810 was production of fresh water by distillation possible on a useful scale.^{[citation needed]}

Lind's final work was published in 1768; the Essay on Diseases Incidental to Europeans in Hot Climates, with the Method of Preventing their fatal Consequences. It was a work on the symptoms and treatments of tropical disease, but was not specific to naval medicine and served more as a general text for doctors and British emigrants. The Essay was used as a medical text in Britain for fifty years following publication. Seven editions were printed, including two after Lind's death.^[20]

Lind married Isabella Dickie and had two sons, John and James. In 1773 he was living on Princes Street in a brand-new house facing Edinburgh Castle.^[21]

John

James rose to the rank of post-captain, and was notable for his role in the Battle of Vizagapatam in the Bay of Bengal in 1804, for which he was knighted.^[23]

Lind died at Gosport in Hampshire in 1794.^[25] He was buried in St Mary's Parish Churchyard in Portchester.^[26]

Lind's is one of twenty-three names on the Frieze of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine building in Keppel Street, London. Names were selected by a committee of unknown constitution who deemed them to be pioneers in public health and tropical medicine.^[27] At University of Edinburgh Medical School there is the James Lind commemorative plaque unveiled in 1953, funded by citrus growers of California and Arizona.^[28] The James Lind Alliance is named after him.^[29]

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to James Lind.

• James Lind Library (including biography and extracts from Lind's most important works)
• The Lind pages with reference to the Lind family in general including a family tree and other family documents
• James Lind Institute creates future bellwethers of clinical research industry and carries forward the legacy of James Lind
• James Lind at Find a Grave