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JBS Haldane entering a deep-sea diving chamber on 1 January 1941 - repeated bouts of decompression would leave him prone to seizures, partly deaf, and able to blow smoke through one of his ears.
JBS Haldane entering a deep-sea diving chamber on 1 January 1941 - repeated bouts of decompression would leave him prone to seizures, partly deaf, and able to blow smoke through one of his ears.
Olivier Ameisen, a French cardiologist, found his own cure for alcoholism through a bout of pharmacological self-experimentation - a story related in his book, The End of My Addiction. While editing our review of Ameisen's book, I started thinking about other scientists who've become their own test subjects - and my colleagues were quick to chime in.
Many of the stories we turned up proved hard to verify, and others too scurrilous to publish - but here are eight extraordinary (and occasionally disgusting) stories of medical self-experimentation.
Experimenting on yourself very rarely leads to scientific glory - it's much more likely to result in swift admission to the casualty ward, or even to the morgue. So New Scientist doesn't recommend you try these experiments on yourself, or anyone else for that matter.
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