Clinical Trials

Environmental & Science Education, STEM, Nature of Science, History of Science, Science & Society

Ed Hessler

Have a morning Cup o'Joe with Joe Schwarcz who discusses the importance of clinical trials in health and medicine.

The video is 5m 34s long.

If you would also like to read this history, Schwarcz wrote a well-illustrated essay that covers the same material. The illustrations show the people  and other related documents.

David Grann's best selling book, The Wager has many details on the disease known as scurvy and how it affected the crew and the expedition.  A crew already starving and facing one hazard after another somehow manages to do the work that has to be done. What is sad is that the ship left some islands with the preventive and cure, out of ignorance and beliefs. They had another opportunity to put two and two together but didn't or couldn't.  It is heart-rending as is the entire story of sailors and seas and legal proceedings. But not to be missed.

Dr. Schwarcz directs the University of McGill Office for Science & Society.