Self-experimentation in medicine

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.

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Notable examples of medical self-experimentation

ABO blood group system

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.

Cardiac catheterization

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 for this achievement.

Thrombocytopenia

William J. Harrington was a doctor who in 1949 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.

Helicobacter pylori

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.

Cholera

Max von Pettenkofer drank cholera bacteria.

Effect of forces on the body

John Paul Stapp sat in a rocket sled at almost the speed of sound, and then made an abrupt stop.

Psychoactive drugs

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.

Yellow fever

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.

Alcohol

Erik Jacobsen demonstrated the effect of antabuse and alcohol on himself.

Heavy water

Klaus Hansen drank heavy water.

Neural implant

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^[2].

Skin transplantation

Ole Jakob Malm transplanted foreign tissue onto his own skin in order to discern among different tissue types.

Snakebite

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. Technically he is allergic and immune at the same time(1). 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.(1)http://dnavaccine.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1413.

Weight balance

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). The result was the 1614 publication De Statica Medicina ("On Medical Measurements")^[3].

References

1. ^ Fontenot C, O'Leary J (1996). "Dr. Werner Forssman's self-experimentation.". Am Surg 62 (6): 514-5. PMID 8651541.
2. ^ Warwick, K, Gasson, M, Hutt, B, Goodhew, I, Kyberd, P, Andrews, B, Teddy, P and Shad, A:“The Application of Implant Technology for Cybernetic Systems”, Archives of Neurology, 60(10), pp1369-1373, 2003
3. ^ Eknoyan G. Santorio Sanctorius (1561-1636) - founding father of metabolic balance studies. Am J Nephrol. 1999;19(2):226-33.

See also:

• Kerridge I (2003). "Altruism or reckless curiosity? A brief history of self experimentation in medicine.". Intern Med J 33 (4): 203-7. PMID 12680989.
• Gandevia SC (2005). "Self-experimentation, ethics and efficacy.". Monash Bioeth Rev. 24 (2): 43-48. PMID 16208882.
• Altman, Lawrence K. (1998). Who Goes First? : The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21281-9.