On board ship surgeons with warrant rank had been carried since the seventeenth century.

This Board appointed ships' surgeons and their assistants, ensured that they were equipped and supplied with medicines, superintended the dispensers who issued medicines, supervised the furnishing and equipment of hospitals and hospital ships, examined and cleared accounts and made returns of the sick and wounded to the Admiralty and Navy Boards.

In the Sick and Hurt Board's records both medical and prisoner-of-war business was generally mixed.

[10] Commissioners include:[7] The Sick and Hurt Commissioners are credited with the eradication of scurvy from the Royal Navy by putting to use the ideas of Johann Bachstrom and James Lind, who believed lemons, limes or other citrus fruits could help prevent the disease.

In his 1734 book Observationes circa scorbutum ("Observations on Scurvy"), Bachstrom wrote that: scurvy is solely owing to a total abstinence from fresh vegetable food, and greens; which is alone the primary cause of the disease.Lind's essay on the most effectual means of preserving the health of seamen appeared in 1753.

In an experiment in 1794, lemon juice was issued on board HMS Suffolk on a twenty-three-week, non-stop voyage to India.