 Modern clinical research may have begun on the 20th of May, 1747, aboard the HMS Salisbury. James Lind, the ship’s surgeon, was concerned with the costs scurvy was exacting on British sailors, and was skeptical of some of the interventions, cider, elixir of vitriol, vinegar, sea-water, being used at the time to treat it. Unlike other clinicians of his day, Lind did not simply assume that he was correct and treat his patients accordingly. He designed a study. He chose 12 sailors from among the 30 or so Salisbury’s crew members who were suffering from scurvy, and divided them into six groups of 2 sailors each. Lind assigned a different intervention to each of the groups, including two sailors turned research participants who received 2 oranges and 1 lemon each day. Within a week these two were sailors again; the others remained patients, and several were dying.