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Sir Gilbert Blane

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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SIR GILBERT BLANE (1749-1834), Scottish physician, was born at Blanefield, Ayrshire, on the 29th of August 1749. He was educated at Edinburgh university, and shortly after his removal to London became private physician to Lord Rodney, whom he accompanied to the West Indies in 1779. He did much to improve the health of the fleet by attention to the diet of the sailors and by enforcing due sanitary precautions, and it was largely through him that in 1795 the use of lime-juice was made obligatory throughout the navy as a preventive of scurvy. Enjoying a number of court and hospital appointments he built up a good practice for himself in London, and the government constantly consulted him on questions of public hygiene. He was made a baronet in 1812 in reward for the services he rendered in connexion with the return of the Walcheren expedition. He died in London on the 26th of June 1834. Among his works were Observations on the Diseases of Seamen (1795) and Elements of Medical Logic (1819).