1714: Charles Maitland, Smallpox
Dr. Maitland inoculated six prisoners with smallpox, promising them release from prison. (Read D. Wooton, Bad Medicine: Doctors Doing Harm Since Hippocrates, 2006.)
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6th Century BC: Biblical Daniel’s Scientific Experiment
Probably few Bible scholars or scientists are aware that Daniel—the same Daniel who was cast into the lion’s den—was also a scientist. Daniel proposed (what is now recognized as) a classic experimental design: comparing the effect of a vegetable and water diet to a diet of the king’s meat and…
1900: Walter Reed, MD, Yellow Fever
Yellow fever epidemics struck the United States repeatedly in the 18th and 19th centuries. The disease was not indigenous; epidemics were imported by ship from the Caribbean. Dr. Reed decided against self-experimentation and injected 22 Spanish immigrant workers in Cuba instead with the agent for yellow fever. He paid them…
American Eugenics Research — Racism masquerading as “science”
“Whatever the motives and methods used to realise them – persuasion, education, coercion, sterilisation, segregation, euthanasia and more – eugenics has stemmed from the belief that a population, ‘race’, or even the species, is ‘degenerating’ and in urgent need of improvement and revitalisation.” (Prof. John Galloway. Review, The Oxford Handbook…
1896: Arthur Wentworth MD
Arthur Wentworth, MD, a pediatrician trained at Harvard Medical School, performed spinal taps on 29 babies and young children at Children’s Hospital, Boston, to determine if the procedure was harmful. Dr. John Roberts of Philadelphia, noting the non-therapeutic indication, labeled Wentworth’s procedures “human vivisection.” (Grodin and Glantz, Children As Research…
Reference Sources for Experiments Prior to World War II
Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) Report Ch. 2, 1995. Lawrence Altman. Who Goes First? The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine, 1988 Appeal from the Lübeck Decision, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 1932 Nicholas Bakalar. Where the Germs Are: A Scientific Safari, 2003 Edwin Black. War Against…
1931: Germany: “Guidelines for Human Experimentation”
Germany’s Ministry of the Interior issued “Guidelines for Human Experimentation” Unambiguous informed consent is mandatory; particular care must be taken when the subject is a child under 18; exploitation of patients who poor, or socially disadvantaged is prohibited; disclosure requirements — the purpose, justification, and the manner in which research…