This was ripped from my X feed. The article was quite interesting and I wanted to share. ( I linked near the end of this post)
We see what …. Science – Scurvy – Sailors – and Limes … teach us!
————————————-
Scurvy killed more British sailors than France and Spain ever did. 🇬🇧
The Royal Navy’s greatest enemy wasn’t cannon fire. It was a disease.
In 1747 a Scottish naval surgeon named James Lind had a theory.
He took twelve sailors suffering from scurvy aboard HMS Salisbury. Divided them into six pairs. Gave each pair a different remedy the navy believed in… Cider, vinegar, seawater.
And gave one pair two oranges and one lemon a day.
After six days, five pairs were unchanged.
The sixth pair were almost recovered. 🍊
Lind had just conducted the first clinical trial in recorded history.
Every medicine you have ever taken was tested using his method.
He published his results in 1753.
The Admiralty ignored him for forty years.
Meanwhile Captain James Cook used citrus on his second voyage.
He lost only one sailor to scurvy in three years at sea.
The Admiralty noted it. Did nothing.
Tens of thousands of sailors died of a disease that had already been cured.
In 1794 one admiral finally acted. He ordered lemon juice issued to every sailor aboard HMS Suffolk for a twenty three week voyage to India.
Not one case of scurvy.
The following year the Royal Navy made it standard issue. Every sailor. Every ship.
Scurvy vanished from the fleet almost overnight. ⚓
Then the Navy switched from lemons to West Indian limes… Cheaper and easier to source from British colonies.
Limes carry a fraction of the vitamin C that lemons do.
American sailors watching British sailors drink their lime rations had a name for it.
They called us limeys. And it stuck.
Ten years later, at Trafalgar, Britain’s navy was at full strength.
The French and Spanish fleets were not.
One Scottish surgeon. Twelve sailors. Two oranges and a lemon.
James Lind died in 1794. One year before the navy he served finally adopted his cure.
He invented the clinical trial. He saved more British sailors than any admiral in history.
Your ancestors proved the truth.
Did they teach you that?
It’s time to prove the truth again.
Your support pays for the research, production and hours it takes to get it right.
Be part of us. Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧
—————
Here is a great video put together for this article…
https://twitter.com/ProudofusUK/status/2046107841207927186/video/1
Muddy Shoes by Todd 
Leave a comment