The first clinical trial: Eat your vegetables

The first ‘clinical’ trial may have been 2600 years ago. According to the Book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar held Israelites in captivity in Babylon after the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC. The king selected an elite group of prisoners to serve him in the future. They were to receive the same “choice” food and wine as the king.

Now Daniel determined not to contaminate himself by touching the food and wine assigned to him by the king, and he begged the master of the eunuchs not to make him do so. … [T]he master … said to him, ‘I am afraid of my lord the king: he has assigned you your food and drink, and if he sees you looking dejected, unlike the other young men of your own age, it will cost me my head.’ Then Daniel said to the guard … ‘Submit us to this test for ten days. Give us only vegetables to eat and water to drink; then compare our looks with those of the young men who have lived on the food assigned by the king, and be guided in your treatment of us by what you see.’ The guard … tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days they looked healthier and were better nourished than all the young men who had lived on the food assigned them by the king. Daniel 1: 8-16

This was not a blind, randomized trial, so we can’t rule out the placebo effect. Also, there were only four subjects. But evidently the idea of a test group and a control group has been around a long time.

The word for ‘vegetable’ in this passage is sometimes translated as ‘pulse.’ Pulses are things like beans, peas, lentils, and chickpeas. They contain 20 to 25% protein by weight. So Daniel knew a healthy diet when he saw one. An early example of a “healthy lifestyle.”

I came across this story not by reading the Bible, but by reading Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science, an excellent book. It’s not yet available in the US, but you can get a like-new, paperback copy from Amazon (USA) through a third party reseller.