self-experimentation

{{main article|Self-experimentation in medicine}}Human scientific self-experimentation principally (though not necessarily) falls into the fields of medicine and psychology. Self-experimentation has a long and well-documented history in medicine which continues to the present day.Who Goes First?: The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine by Lawrence Altman

For example, after failed attempts to infect piglets in 1984, Barry Marshall drank a petri dish of Helicobacter pylori from a patient, and soon developed gastritis, achlorhydria, stomach discomfort, nausea, vomiting, and halitosis.{{cite news | title= Gut Instincts: A profile of Nobel laureate Barry Marshall| url=https://news.psu.edu/story/140921/2008/02/04/research/gut-instincts-profile-nobel-laureate-barry-marshall | author = Melissa Beattie-Moss| date=February 4, 2008 | journal= Penn State News}} The results were published in 1985 in the Medical Journal of Australia,{{cite web|url=http://www.mja.com.au/ |title=Medical Journal of Australia |publisher=Mja.com.au |access-date=2010-03-02}} and is among the most cited articles from the journal.{{cite journal | last =Van Der Weyden | first =Martin B |author2=Ruth M Armstrong |author3=Ann T Gregory | title =The 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine | journal =Medical Journal of Australia | volume =183 | issue =11/12 | pages =612–614 | year =2005 | pmid =16336147 | url =http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/183_11_051205/van11000_fm.html#0_i1091639 | access-date = 2007-01-28 }} He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005.

Evaluations have been presented in the context of clinical trials and program evaluations.{{cite journal | title=Self experimenting doctors | journal= BMJ | date = 12 April 2011 | volume=342 | pages=d215 | doi= 10.1136/bmj.d2156 | author=Rebecca Ghani| s2cid= 80314766 }}David E.K. Hunter, "Daniel and the Rhinoceros", Evaluation and Program Planning Volume 29, Issue 2, May 2006, Pages 180-185 (Program Capacity and Sustainability). [https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2005.10.001]

In psychology, the best-known self-experiments are the memory studies of Hermann Ebbinghaus, which established many basic characteristics of human memory through tedious experiments involving nonsense syllables.{{cite book|first=Hermann |last=Ebbinghaus |date=1913 |title=Über das Gedächtnis. Untersuchungen zur experimentellen Psychologie |publisher=NY Teachers College}}

Several popular and well-known sweeteners were discovered by deliberate or sometimes accidental tasting of reaction products. Saccharin was synthetized in 1879 in the chemistry labs of Ira Remsen at Johns Hopkins by a student scientist, Constantin Fahlberg, who noticed "curious sweet taste on his fingers while eating his dinner, [and] realized that it came from something he had spilled on his hand during the day". Fahlberg subsequently identified the active compound, ortho-benzoic sulfimide, and named it saccharin.{{cite book |last=Gratzer |first=Walter |url=https://archive.org/details/eurekaseuphorias0000grat/page/14 |title=Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes |date=28 November 2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-280403-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/eurekaseuphorias0000grat/page/14 14–] |chapter=5. Light on sweetness: the discovery of aspartame |access-date=1 August 2012 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sTArAZsHejkC&pg=PT34 |url-access=}}{{Cite web |title=The Pursuit of Sweet |url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/the-pursuit-of-sweet/ |access-date=2024-03-24 |website=Science History Institute |language=en-US}} Cyclamate was discovered when a chemistry research student noticed a sweet taste on his cigarette that he had set down on his bench. Acesulfame was discovered when a laboratory worker licked his finger. Aspartame was also discovered accidentally when chemist James Schlatter spilled a solution of it on his hands, then later licked one of his fingers to pick up a piece of paper.{{Citation |last=Mazur |first=Robert H. |title=Discovery of Aspartame |date=2020-10-28 |work=Aspartame: Physiology and Biochemistry |page=4 |editor-last=Stegink |editor-first=Lewis D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yTH1iI9ybl4C&pg=PA3 |access-date=2024-11-29 |edition=1 |publisher=CRC Press |language=en |doi=10.1201/9781003065289-2 |isbn=978-1-003-06528-9 |editor2-last=Filer |editor2-first=L.J.|url-access=subscription }} Sucralose was discovered by a foreign student, mishearing instructions of his supervisor, Prof. L. Hough, to "test" the compounds as to "taste" them.

Leo Sternbach, the inventor of Librium and Valium, tested chemicals that he made on himself, saying in an interview, "I tried everything. Many drugs. Once, in the sixties, I was sent home for two days. It was an extremely potent drug, not a Benzedrine. I slept for a long time. My wife was very worried".{{Cite news |last=Paumgarten |first=Nick |date=2003-06-08 |title=Little Helper |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/06/16/little-helper |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240520162724/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/06/16/little-helper |archive-date=2024-05-20 |access-date=2024-12-01 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann first discovered the psychedelic properties of LSD five years after its creation, when he accidentally absorbed a small amount of the drug through his fingertips. Days later, he intentionally self-experimented with it.{{cite web|last1=Shroder|first1=Tom|title='Apparently Useless': The Accidental Discovery of LSD|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/the-accidental-discovery-of-lsd/379564/|publisher=The Atlantic|access-date=7 December 2016|date=2014-09-09}}

Chemist Alexander Shulgin synthesized tens of molecules in search of psychoactive materials, and evaluated them via careful self-experimentation together with his wife Ann Shulgin and a small research group of good friends.{{Cite journal |last1=Shulgin |first1=A T |last2=Shulgin |first2=L A |last3=Jacob |first3=P |date=1986-05-01 |title=A protocol for the evaluation of new psychoactive drugs in man |url=https://europepmc.org/article/med/3724306 |journal=Methods and Findings in Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology |volume=8 |issue=5 |pages=313–320 |issn=2013-0155 |pmid=3724306}}{{Cite book |last1=Shulgin |first1=Alexander |title=PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story |last2=Shulgin |first2=Ann |publisher=Transform Press |year=1990 |isbn=9780963009609 |edition= |location=Berkeley}}{{Cite book |last1=Shulgin |first1=Alexander |title=TiHKAL: The Continuation |last2=Shulgin |first2=Ann |date=1997 |publisher=Transform Press |location=Berkeley}}

• Psychonautics
• Participant observation
• Seth Roberts
• Personal science
• Human Enhancement
• Quantified self

• Lawrence K. Altman: Who Goes First? The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine. (1987) Wellingborough
• Seth Roberts & Allen Neuringer: Self-Experimentation, In: Handbook of Research Methods in Human Operant Behavior von Kennon A. Lattal & M. Perone (Eds.), S. 619–655. New York: Plenum Press (englisch).

{{Reflist}}

- Hanley et al 2019, [https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/rej.2018.2059 "Review of Scientific Self-Experimentation: Ethics History, Regulation, Scenarios, and Views Among Ethics Committees and Prominent Scientists"]

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Category:Scientific method

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Category:Self-harm

Category:Self