Historical myths die hard: one such is of a supposed outbreak of scurvy—said by some to be the result of medical insouciance—at Millbank penitentiary in 1823. Thus, Sean McConville in his masterly account of prisons in the reform period writes: “The decision [to reduce the diet] was a major factor in the scurvy epidemic which followed shortly afterwards, causing at least thirty deaths”. Other authors take a similar line: “Fifteen months later, after 30 had died, and after the whole convict population had been evacuated from the prison, Holford was convinced that the disease had been sea-scurvy”; “there was a serious outbreak of scurvy not long after the new diet was adopted”; “In the winter of 1823, the inmates began to succumb to typhus, dysentery, and scurvy. Thirty-one died and four hundred others were incapacitated”; “The scurvy was the prevailing disease, and was seen in over half of the 860 inmates”. Joe Sim in his generally condemnatory evaluation of medical staff working in prisons states: “Millbank was at the centre of a major controversy when an outbreak of scurvy occurred and thirty-one prisoners died. The [Prison Medical Service] was deeply implicated”, and he goes on to associate the physician in charge with “experiments” on the bodies and minds of the confined.

The Pioneer Health Centre, based in South London before and after the Second World War, remains a source of interest for advocates of a positive approach to health promotion in contrast with the treatment of those already ill. Its closure in 1950 for lack of funds has been blamed on the then recently established National Health Service, but this article argues that such an explanation is over-simplified and ignores a number of other factors. The Centre had struggled financially during the 1930s and tried to gain support from the Medical Research Council. The Council appeared interested in the Centre before the war, but was less sympathetic in the 1940s. Around the time of its closure and afterwards, the Centre was also involved in negotiations with London County Council; these failed because the Centre’s directors would not accept the changes which the Council would have needed to make. Unpublished documents reveal that the Centre’s directors were uncompromising and that their approach to the situation antagonised their colleagues. Changes in medical science also worked against the Centre. The success of sulphonamide drugs appeared to render preventive medicine less significant, while the development of statistical techniques cast doubt on the Centre’s experimental methods. The Centre was at the heart of the nascent organic farming movement, which opposed the rapid growth of chemical cultivation. But what might be termed ‘chemical triumphalism’ was on the march in both medicine and agriculture, and the Centre was out of tune with the mood of the times.

Practical mathematics in the early modern period was applied to such fields as astronomy and navigation; cartography and surveying; engineering and military arts, including gunnery; and especially banking and mercantile trade. Those who have written about practical mathematics make no mention of medical applications in their surveys, although there were many cases where physicians set up as mathematical practitioners. This article examines medical applications found in practical mathematical literature up to the end of the seventeenth century in England.