Self-experimentation refers to the very special case of single-subject scientific experimentation in which the experimenter conducts the experiment on her- or himself. Usually this means that the designer, operator, subject, analyst, and user or reporter of the experiment are all the same. Self-experimentation has a long and well-documented history in medicine which continues to the present. Some of these experiments have been very valuable and shed new and often unexpected insights into different areas of medicine.
Doctor Karl Landsteiner's discovery of the ABO blood group system in 1900 was based on an analysis of blood samples from six members of his laboratory staff, including himself.
Clinical application of cardiac catheterization begins with Werner Forssmann in the 1930s, who inserted a catheter into the brachial vein of his own forearm, guided it fluoroscopically into his right atrium, and took an X-ray picture of it.[1] Forssmann won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this achievement.
In the Harrington–Hollingsworth experiment in 1950, William J. Harrington performed an exchange blood transfusion between him and a thrombocytopenic patient, discovering the immune basis of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and providing evidence for the existence of autoimmunity.
In 1984 a Western Australian scientist, Dr Barry Marshall, discovered of the link between Helicobacter pylori and gastritis. This was based on a series of self experiments that involved gastroscopy and biopsy, ingestion of H. pylori, regastroscopy and biopsy and subsequent treatment with tinidazole.
Max von Pettenkofer drank cholera bacteria.
John Paul Stapp sat in a rocket sled at almost the speed of sound, and then made an abrupt stop.
Psychopharmacologists Alexander and Ann Shulgin synthesized and experimented with a wide array of new phenethylamine and tryptamine drugs, discovering a range of previously unknown psychoactive drug effects.
In Cuba, U.S. Army doctors from Walter Reed's research team infected themselves with yellow fever including James Carroll, Aristides Agramonte, and, most notably, Jesse Lazear, who died from yellow fever complications in 1900. These efforts ultimately resulted in proof of the mosquito-borne nature of yellow fever transmission and saved countless lives. Stubbins Ffirth had investigated the contagious nature of the disease at the end of the 19th Century.
Erik Jacobsen, with Jens Hald and Keneth Ferguson at the Danish drug company Medicinalco, demonstrated the effect of antabuse and alcohol on themselves, see Disufiram.
Klaus Hansen drank heavy water.[2]
Kevin Warwick had an array of 100 electrodes fired into the median nerve fibres of his left arm. With this in place, over a 3 month period, he conducted a number of experiments linking his nervous system with the internet[3].
Ole Jakob Malm transplanted foreign tissue onto his own skin in order to discern among different tissue types.
Tim Friede created his own vaccine against snakebite using pure venom injections from all four species of mambas, and four cobra species to achieve high immunity. He also survived IgE shock six times with mamba injections. Others have also injected venom to create immunity to snake venom; Bill Haast, Harold Mierkey, Ray Hunter, Joel La Rocque, Herschel Flowers, Martin Crimmins, and Charles Tanner.[4]
Santorio Santorio spent a large portion of 30 years living on a platform meticulously measuring his daily weight combined with that of his intake and excretion in an effort to test Galen's theory that the respiration occurs through the skin as perspiratio insensibilis (insensible perspiration)[5]. The result was the 1614 publication De Statica Medicina ("On Medical Measurements")[6].
Roger Altounyan developed the use of sodium cromoglycate as a remedy for asthma, based on khella, a traditional Middle Eastern remedy, with experiments on himself.
Daniel Alcides Carrion infected himself from the pus in the purple lesion in a bart No. 1 subspecies (bartonellosis) patient in 1885. He died from the disease several weeks later.
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