Commentary: Unbiased divination, unbiased evidence, and the patulin clinical trial

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Abstract
Histories of the randomized clinical trial (RCT) are constantly unearthing dramatic precursors for concurrent controls, random assignment to comparison group, blind assessment, placebo controls, and statistical inference.1 –4 All these forerunners seem to indicate a constantly budding but, somehow, stumbling and aborted development toward the modern methodology. While most of the methods (at least in primitive forms) seem known in numerous early sources, it is not clear why medicine as a profession refused to commit itself to safeguards against bias until after World War II. The 60th anniversary of the under-appreciated and critical placebo controlled clinical trial of patulin for the common cold is a timely moment to offer some historical reflections on the origin and final acceptance of the RCT.
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