Five centuries of medical contributions from the Royal Navy.

Royal Naval ships' companies, isolated by hundreds of miles of sea with contacts to the outside world tightly regulated, provided perfect environments to study the epidemiology of disease. In 1747, James Lind organised one of the earliest clinical trials, demonstrating that scurvy could be treated by lemon juice. A century later, Alexander Bryson proved the value of careful epidemiological data collection and observation of infectious diseases encountered on the West Africa station.