SAMA HOOLE: Meanwhile, fresh meat prevents scurvy perfectly. The Inuit never get scurvy eating seal and caribou. Arctic explorers who eat like the Inuit survive without any citrus.

1747: Royal Navy surgeon James Lind conducts the first controlled clinical trial in history.

British sailors are dying of scurvy. Gums bleeding, teeth falling out, wounds not healing, death within weeks.

Lind tests 6 treatments on 12 sailors.

Two sailors get citrus fruits… pic.twitter.com/absHQDq1MT

— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) December 16, 2025

1747: Royal Navy surgeon James Lind conducts the first controlled clinical trial in history. British sailors are dying of scurvy. Gums bleeding, teeth falling out, wounds not healing, death within weeks. Lind tests 6 treatments on 12 sailors. Two sailors get citrus fruits (lemons and oranges). They recover completely in 6 days. The other 10 continue deteriorating. The cure is proven. Published. Documented in clinical detail. Royal Navy response: Nothing. They ignore it for 40 years. 1795: Finally adopted. But they switch from lemons to limes (cheaper, less effective). Scurvy returns. 1875: Arctic expeditions are still dying of scurvy despite carrying lime juice. The juice is too diluted, improperly stored, vitamin C degraded. Multiple expeditions fail. Men die horrible deaths. All preventable. Meanwhile, fresh meat prevents scurvy perfectly. The Inuit never get scurvy eating seal and caribou. Arctic explorers who eat like the Inuit survive without any citrus. But the Royal Navy doesn't mandate fresh meat. They mandate inadequate lime juice. Why? Because fresh meat requires hunting, preserving, or keeping livestock. That's expensive and logistically complex. Lime juice is cheap. Ships can store it easily. Even if it doesn't work. The Navy chose convenient failure over effective solution. By 1900, scurvy is still killing sailors and explorers despite the cure being known for 150 years. The pattern: We find the cure. It's inconvenient or unprofitable. We implement a inferior substitute. People die. We blame the disease. Modern parallel: We know removing carbohydrates reverses diabetes. Instead we prescribe insulin and metformin while telling people to "eat balanced meals with whole grains." The convenient failure continues. The profitable failure continues. 350 years later, we're still choosing management over cure because cure doesn't generate revenue.