Why the 1948 MRC trial of streptomycin used treatment allocation based on random numbers.

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

Who cites it

16 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

1. Management of non-syndromic dens evaginatus affecting permanent maxillary central incisors: a systematic review.BMJ case reports · 2016
   Pooled it
2. Management of non-syndromic double tooth affecting permanent maxillary central incisors: a systematic review.BMJ case reports · 2016
   Pooled it
3. Reducing selection bias risk to enhance RCT validity: sandwich mixed randomization outperforms permuted block design.BMC medical research methodology · 2026
   Article
4. The problematic history of randomised controlled trials Part 1: presumption and confusion on the road to randomisation.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2026
   Article
5. The disservice of publishing preliminary results based on a premature hypothesis - Semmelweis' ordeal revisited.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2025
   Article
6. Genome-based assessment of antimicrobial resistance reveals the lineage specificity of resistance and resistance gene profiles inMicrobiology spectrum · 2024
   Article
7. Key considerations for designing, conducting and analysing a cluster randomized trial.International journal of epidemiology · 2023
   Article
8. Carl Liebermeister and the emergence of modern medical statistics. Part 3: 19th-century criticism and a paradigm lost.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2022
   Article
9. Learning in times of stress: Lessons from COVID-19 that will last throughout this century.European journal of internal medicine · 2022
   Article
10. The conundrum of depression clinical trials: one size does not fit all.International clinical psychopharmacology · 2018
    Review
11. John Guyett Scadding's scepticism and pragmatism in addressing treatment uncertainties in clinical practice.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2018
    Article
12. "Threshold-crossing": A Useful Way to Establish the Counterfactual in Clinical Trials?Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics · 2016
    Article
13. Tackling treatment uncertainties together: the evolution of the James Lind Initiative, 2003-2013.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2013
    Article
14. UK Medical Research Council and multicentre clinical trials: from a damning report to international recognition.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2013
    Article
15. Injury and death in clinical trials and compensation: Rule 122 DAB.Perspectives in clinical research · 2013
    Article
16. The Medical Research Council and clinical trial methodologies before the 1940s: the failure to develop a 'scientific' approach.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2011
    Article

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

Authors and funding

1 author.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

Abstract

PubMed holds no abstract for this paper.

Indexed as