James Lind

James Lind is a graduate of Edinburgh Medical School, known for his pioneering work on the use of citrus fruits to treat scurvy.

James was born in Edinburgh in 1716. Following school, he was apprenticed to an Edinburgh surgeon and subsequently attended an anatomy course by Alexander Monro primus at the University of Edinburgh. Despite having no formal qualifications, he became a royal naval surgeon in 1738 and took to the seas across the globe. He experienced first hand the realities of scurvy-related deaths on board ships and with existing remedies proving mostly ineffective, he looked about finding his own cure for the disease.

While serving as surgeon on HMS Salisbury in 1747, he began to carry out experiments on crew members with scurvy. He selected 12 people, divided them into pairs and gave each pair different additions to their basic diet: cider, seawater, a mixture of garlic, mustard and horseradish, spoonfuls of vinegar, and oranges and lemons. The results were conclusive. The pair given the oranges and lemons made a remarkable recovery, definitively establishing for the first time the superiority of citrus fruits above all other so-called cures.

Following his discovery, he retired from the navy and enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to earn professional qualifications. In 1753, he published 'A Treatise of the Scurvy' and in 1757 'An Essay on the Most Effectual Means of Preserving the Health of Seamen in the Royal Navy', both of which did much to highlight the appalling living conditions and diet of seamen.

In 1758, James was appointed physician to the Naval Hospital at Haslar in Gosport where he continued his passion for health at sea. Here he conducted his seminal works on typhus fever in ships and the important 'Essay on Diseases Incidental to Europeans in Hot Climates'.

He died in Gosport in 1784. Just over a decade later, in 1795, an official order was issued on the supply of lemon juice to ships following the results of James' experiments 40 years earlier. Scurvy was eradicated from the Royal Navy and James Lind became a naval hero.