---
title: "Self-experimentation in medicine"
chunk: 6/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-experimentation_in_medicine"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:17:50.473562+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

==== Hanging ====
In the early 1900s Nicolae Minovici, a professor of forensic science in Bucharest, undertook a series of experiments into hanging.  At first he put the noose around his neck while lying down and had an assistant put tension on the rope.  He then moved on to full suspension by the neck.  Finally, he attempted suspension with a slipping hangman's knot, but the pain was too great for him to continue.  He could not swallow for a month.  Minovici was determined to surpass a record set by Dr. Fleichmann of Erlangen, who in 1832, self-asphyxiated for two minutes.  However, Minovici could not get close to this and disbelieved Fleichmann.
Minovici and Fleichmann are not the only ones to self-experiment with strangulation. Graeme Hammond, a doctor in New York, tried it in 1882. Francis Bacon described an even earlier occasion in 1623 when the self-experimenter stepped off a stool with a rope around his neck, but was unable to regain his footing on the stool without assistance.

==== Rapid acceleration ====

John Paul Stapp, in 1954, sat in a rocket sled fired along rails in a series of steadily more violent tests.  Speeds reached 631 mph, almost the speed of sound.  This is a speed record for a manned rail vehicle that still stands today.  At the end of the track the sled hit a trough of water that brought it to a rapid stop in around 1.4 seconds.  In the most severe test, Stapp underwent an acceleration of 20 g as the rocket engine accelerated the vehicle up to speed and 46 g of deceleration (also a record) as the vehicle was brought to a stop.  Stapp suffered numerous injuries in these tests (previous animal tests had shown that limbs could be broken merely by being pulled into the air stream), and several concussions.  In the last test his eyes were bloodied as blood vessels burst in his eyes.
These tests were carried out for the US Air Force to determine the forces that pilots could be subjected to and to enable better restraining straps to be designed.

==== 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 respiration occurs through the skin as perspiratio insensibilis (insensible perspiration).  The result was the 1614 publication De Statica Medicina ("On Medical Measurements").

=== Poisons ===

==== Black widow spider venom ====
Allan Blair of the University of Alabama, in 1933, deliberately caused a black widow spider to bite him.  At the time there was some doubt that the reported symptoms of some victims were the result of a spider bite or some other cause.  Blair's experiment was intended to settle the matter.  Blair became seriously ill and was hospitalised for several days in great pain, but survived.

==== Hydrogen cyanide ====

Joseph Barcroft, in 1917, tested hydrogen cyanide on himself as part of research into poison gas in World War I. He was shut in a chamber with a dog and exposed to the gas.  Barcroft continued with the experiment even after the dog went into tetanic convulsions and appeared to die.  The experiment was continued for less than two minutes.  The next morning the dog was found to be alive and apparently fully recovered.  It is not known why dogs are more susceptible to the gas than humans.

For other self-experiments by Barcroft, see § Temperature and pressure

==== Snake venom ====
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 anaphylactic shock six times during the development of his vaccine. 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.

==== Tetrachloroethylene and carbon tetrachloride ====
In 1921, Maurice Crowther Hall ingested carbon tetrachloride to test its safety with a view to its possible use as a treatment for hookworm.  Hall reported mild side effects.  Carbon tetrachloride has since been found to cause acute liver failure.  In 1925, Hall ingested tetrachloroethylene (the most common dry cleaning fluid) for the same purpose.

=== Radioactive materials and isotopes ===
Gary Earl Leinbach, in 1972, swallowed radioactive iodine and a knife in a tube for a biopsy.  Leinbach was investigating a new way of diagnosing steatorrhea.
Kenneth Gordon Scott, in 1949, inhaled aerosols of plutonium and uranium.

==== Heavy water ====
In 1935, pharmacologist Klaus Hansen drank heavy water to determine its effects on living beings. After his first dose yielded no ill effects, he began taking increasing doses on a daily basis. A follow-up report released a year later confirmed that he was in good health, and he lived to the age of 75.

=== Surgical and psychological procedures ===

==== Cardiac catheterization ====

Clinical application of cardiac catheterization began 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.  Forssmann did this procedure without permission.  He obtained the assistance of a nurse by deceiving her that she was to be the subject of the experiment.  He tied down her arms while inserting the catheter into his own arm, only releasing her at the point it was too late to change, and he needed her assistance. Forssmann was twice fired for carrying out these self-experiments, but shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1956 for this achievement.  Cardiac catheterization is now a routine procedure in heart surgery.

==== Self-surgery ====