Posted by minervation on November 20, 2025
This podcast recording covers the first section of the James Lind Library essays, exploring why it took so long for fair assessments of medical treatments to develop. Richard Lehman and Raj Mehta delve into the history of medicine, especially its relationship with traditional authority figures. They also address the transition from anecdotal and authority-based decisions to empirical methodologies in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Accompanying reading:
Cited historical contributions to developing experimental methods:
- Bacon R, 1266: Without experimentation, nothing can be sufficiently known” https://www.jameslindlibrary.org/bacon-roger-1266/
- Al Razi, 11th Century CE, 5th Century AH: The need for a control group for comparison https://www.jameslindlibrary.org/al-razi-10th-century-ce-4th-century-ah/
- Van Helmont JB, 1648: A challenge to orthodox medicine https://www.jameslindlibrary.org/van-helmont-jb-1648/
- Lady Montague Wortley, in Boylston AW (2012). The origins of inoculation. JLL Bulletin: Commentaries on the history of treatment evaluation (https://www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/the-origins-of-inoculation/)
- Lind J, 1753: A controlled trial of treatments for scurvy https://www.jameslindlibrary.org/lind-j-1753/
- Paré A, 1575: Wounded soldiers did better without treatment. https://www.jameslindlibrary.org/pare-a-1575/
- Caleb Parry: Expensive Turkish rhubarb vs cheap English rhubarb. https://www.jameslindlibrary.org/parry-ch-1786/
The concept of placebo and its ethical implications are discussed. Early fair tests often compared an active treatment with no treatment, and found that medical care was actually harmful.
The video sets the groundwork for understanding modern clinical trials and evidence-based medicine. Future discussions will explore in more detail the evolution of our understanding of what constitutes “fair tests” of treatments.