James Lind Library
@jameslindlibrary.bsky.social
Illustrating the development of fair tests of treatments in health care through history.
Ahoy. A key part of the history of systematic reviews, the original Cochrane Handbook, is now available online in the James Lind Library. www.jameslindlibrary.org/oxman-a-1994/ #MedHist #HistoryOfMedicine #Cochrane #SystematicReviews #EvidenceSynthesis
Oxman A (1994). - The James Lind Library
The original version of what became the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions, which was originally published as Section VI of the Cochrane Toolkit.
jameslindlibrary.org
My latest blog highlights an important trial from the mid 1950s showing the benefits of reducing heat loss in preterm babies, and illustrating how a hand-drawn graph 👇was used to plot the accumulating evidence and decide to stop the trial www.jameslindlibrary.org/blogs/landma... #TrialsTuesday
Test your knowledge of the reasons that treatment uncertainties should be addressed by taking my short quiz 👇 www.jameslindlibrary.org/blogs/test-y... #MedHist #HistoryOfMedicine #Quiz #EBM #EBHC
Why treatment uncertainties should be addressed - The James Lind Library
James Lind Library quiz 1.1 - Why treatment uncertainties should be addressed, including audio version of the essay.
jameslindlibrary.org
#TrialsTuesday #10 What temperature is best for a premature baby? This month’s Trials Tuesday answered this question 70 years ago and it continues to be cited by Cochrane Reviews when discussing the benefits of reducing heat loss in preterm babies. 1/8 www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10....
cochranelibrary.com
On World Hepatitis Day, visit the James Lind Library to read Jon Pollock's illustratrion of the use of the factorial design in a fair test of treatments for #hepatitis in the 1940s 👇 www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/con... #WorldHepatitisDay #MedHist #HistoryOfMedicine #RCT
A controlled trial using a factorial design reported in 1946. - The James Lind Library
The introduction of randomized controlled experiments in agriculture in the 1920s and 1930s sometimes involved designing studies to make more than one comparison within the same experiment. Partly bec...
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On this day in 1921, Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolated #insulin at the @utoronto.ca Read about the development of this dramatically effective treatment in my article by Charilaos Stylianou and Christopher Kelnar www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/the... #MedHist #HistoryOfMedicine
The introduction of successful treatment of diabetes mellitus with insulin. - The James Lind Library
Introduction The introduction of insulin for treating patients with diabetes mellitus must rate as Canada’s earliest contribution to the welfare of humankind. The report by Banting and his colleagues ...
jameslindlibrary.org
On #WorldBrainDay, the history of one of the first #Cochrane Review Groups, Stroke, shows how their reviews of fair tests have provided an evidence base for #stroke care since 1993. Read the Group's 10 & 20 year reflections 👇👇 www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/... journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
On Belgium National Day (21 July), here's a randomised trial from 80 years ago in Belgium, which used coin toss to provide a fair test of penicillin for treating diphtheria among army personnel. www.jameslindlibrary.org/bolton-jh-pi... @bmj.com #BelgiumNationalDay #MedHist #HistoryOfMedicine #RCT
Bolton JH, Pivawer MJ (1947) - The James Lind Library
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Want to learn about the history of systematic reviews? Watch this 51 minute video 👇, produced and edited by Lorcan Clarke, and presented by his father Mike, Co-ordinating Editor of the James Lind Library www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pys...
Please repost. We have put up a shelf for the history of PPIE in research in the James Lind Library. We need your help to find things for this shelf and then, to build and fill the book cases needed to accommodate all the content.
James Lind Library@jameslindlibrary.bsky.social · 3mo agoAhoy! I am pleased to announce the addition of a new section to the James Lind Library that will illustrate the impact of patient and public involvement in research through history. Please share and get in touch if you would like to help us develop this www.jameslindlibrary.org/blogs/patien... #PPIE
In this new article by Vern Farewell, learn about the 1968 paper which reported the “Ritchie Articular Index”, a measure of joint tenderness in patients with #rheumatoid #arthritis, which became widely used in clinical trials. www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/the...
The Ritchie Index Paper: Some historical background on an early effort to establish objective measures in rheumatic diseases. - The James Lind Library
Introduction A very influential paper in rheumatology is the paper by Ritchie and colleagues (Ritchie et al. 1968) which introduced what became known as the “Ritchie Articular Index” (RAI), a ...
jameslindlibrary.org
On #Red4ResearchDay, visit my website to learn about the development of clinical trials through history www.jameslindlibrary.org
Today is Bloomsday, marking the date of the events in James Joyce’s Ulysses, and you can learn about the doctor described as a "scientific Ulysses" in this article 👇written for me by Stefan Slater www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/the... #HistoryOfMedicine #MedHist #Thyroid #Bloomsday #Ulysses
The discovery of thyroid replacement therapy. - The James Lind Library
Introduction There is a poignant before and after photolithograph of a Victorian lady in the 1878 transactions of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London (Figure 1) (Ord 1878). ...
jameslindlibrary.org
#TrialsTuesday #9 Trials Tuesday has highlighted some clinical trials that were small but which nevertheless had an important impact. In contrast, this month’s trial is one that was described as “massive” by Keith Veronese in Making Medicine. It was called ISIS-2. 1/8
Do you know Archie Cochrane's quote from the 1970s “It is surely a great criticism of our profession that we have not organised a critical summary, by speciality or subspeciality, adapted periodically, of all relevant RCTs.” Access original source here 👇 www.jameslindlibrary.org/cochrane-al-...
Cochrane AL (1979) - The James Lind Library
Contribution to a book arising from a symposium by the UK Office of Health Economics in 1978 in which Archie Cochrane wrote: “It is surely a great criticism of our ...
jameslindlibrary.org
#CochraneDaily Just published! New article in James Lind Library discusses relationship between the long history of the habit of belief and the placebo effect, showing how this medieval image 👇reveals the power of the invisible @jameslindlibrary.bsky.social www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/the...
Belief, effectiveness and the placebo effect. In the latest James Lind Library article, Racha Kirakosian and colleagues review the role of belief and expectations in the effectiveness of treatments, and trace its roots back to medieval illustration. www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/the...
1 June is World Milk Day worldmilkday.org. A good day to learn about the controlled trials of supplementary milk for school children in Scotland and #Belfast in the 1920s, by readng this article by Jon Pollock www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/two... #WorldMilkDay #Milk #HistoryOfMedicine #MedHist
World Milk Day – Celebrating Women Farmers
Observed annually on June 1, World Milk Day unites countries, organizations, and communities to recognize and amplify the dairy sector's impact.
worldmilkday.org
On World Thyroid Day (www.ese-hormones.org/education-an...), read my article by Stefan Slater about the discovery of thyroid replacement therapy. www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/the... #HistoryOfMedicine #MedHist #WorldThyroidDay #Thyroid @esendocrinology.bsky.social
World Thyroid Day | ESE
ese-hormones.org
The first atlas, as a set of maps, was published on 22 May 1570 (archive.org/details/thea...), but Ben Cao Tu Jing's Atlas of Materia Medica was published 500 years earlier. Read about it here 👇 www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/com... #HistoryOfMedicine #MedHist
Commentary on the Ben Cao Tu Jing (11th century). Atlas of Materia Medica. Song Dynasty (960-1279). - The James Lind Library
The Ben Cao Tu Jing (Atlas of Materia Medica) was first published in 1061 in China, during the reign of Ren Zhong, one of the emperors of the Song Dynasty ...
jameslindlibrary.org
Today is International Clinical Trials Day, and you can learn more about me and what I achieved in this article by Iain Milne www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/who... #InternationalClinicalTrialsDay #BePartOfResearch #NIHR20 #EBHC #EBM #RCT #ICTD2026
Who was James Lind, and what exactly did he achieve? - The James Lind Library
Who was James Lind? Visitors to the Edinburgh University quadrangle in Teviot Place, which used to house the Medical School, are unlikely to miss the large plaque put up in ...
jameslindlibrary.org
Richard Lehman's death is a great loss to his family, friends, colleagues and the people he inspired and would have inspired in the future. Richard joined the editorial group for the James Lind Library in 2021 and was always helpful, jovial and insightful.
#TrialsTuesday #8 This month’s #TrialsTuesday features STAMPEDE. This trial for men with prostate cancer published its first practice changing results 10 years ago after a presentation to the American Society of Oncology in May 2015 1/8 ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/... @innovative-ctu.bsky.social #ASCO
ASCO Publications
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Ahoy! I am pleased to announce the addition of a new section to the James Lind Library that will illustrate the impact of patient and public involvement in research through history. Please share and get in touch if you would like to help us develop this www.jameslindlibrary.org/blogs/patien... #PPIE
Patients Have Always Shaped Research. It's Time We Told That Story. - The James Lind Library
The James Lind Library announces a new section to cover Patient and Public Involvement (PPIE) and invites contributions from readers.
jameslindlibrary.org
#TrialsTuesday #7 This month, I’ll take you more than 100 years further back in time than my trial of scurvy. I’ll share with you a proposal for a study that highlighted the need for do a fair test to find out if a common treatment might do more harm than good 1/8 #FairTest #TestingTreatments
As Artemis II heads for the moon, this article 👇 contains a case study of the role of clinical trials in the discovery of artemisinin as an antimalarial. www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/the... #Artemis #Artemisin #Malaria #MedHist #HistoryOfMedicine
The History of Controlled Clinical Trials in China. - The James Lind Library
Abstract The advent of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in mainland China remains largely unexplored. We offer here what we hope is a useful starting-point. We begin with a brief account ...
jameslindlibrary.org
Ahoy! I've several articles that illustrate the use of placebos through history, including this one by Scott Podolsky www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/the... @harvard.edu #HistMed #Placebo #MedicalHistory #RCT
The (Harry) Gold Standard: angina, suggestion, and the path to the “double-blind” test and Clinical Pharmacology. - The James Lind Library
“It is idle to attribute the relief of pain to a substance given in a series of injections when the ritual of the treatment itself, as well as numerous other ...
jameslindlibrary.org
Trials Change Lives@trialschangelives.bsky.social · 4mo ago#CochraneDaily Is masking patients and clinicians in trials Fool's Gold? Read the commentary at www.bmj.com/content/368/... and check out this @cochrane.org review of the comparative effects of active and standard placebos www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.... #AprilFool #Placebo
On World Tuberculosis Day, this article on clinical trials for the treatment of TB in China illustrates the development of these fair tests of treatments through history www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/his... #WorldTuberculosisDay #TB #HistoryOfMedicine
History of Clinical Trials for the Treatment of Tuberculosis in China. - The James Lind Library
Abstract Tuberculosis-related clinical trials in the West were a critical site of trial innovation throughout the twentieth century. And tuberculosis treatment articles and trials, from the late 1940s...
jameslindlibrary.org
1/2 On #WorldSleepDay, learn about clinical trials through history with this account of Cushny and Peebles' test of hyoscines, ~120 years ago. 👇They gave people a tablet on alternate evenings, and compared their sleep with the intervening control nights. www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/joh...
John Henry Gaddum’s 1940 guidance on controlled clinical trials - The James Lind Library
Introduction The rationale for and design of controlled clinical trials as we know them today developed during the first half of the 20th century. The use of alternation to generate ...
jameslindlibrary.org
If you'd like to learn about the history of evidence-based research, here's the new article from Hans Lund and Karen Robinson www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/his... @ebrnetwork.bsky.social #EBM #EBHC #EvidenceSynthesis
History of Evidence-Based Research - The James Lind Library
More than two and a half centuries ago, James Lind’s controlled trial showed that citrus fruits were effective in treating scurvy (Tröhler 2005). Remarkably, Lind’s publication not only reported these...
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