---
title: "Self-experimentation in medicine"
chunk: 5/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-experimentation_in_medicine"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:45:59.502626+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

==== Disulfiram ====
In 1945, during the German occupation of Denmark, Erik Jacobsen and Jens Hald at the Danish drug company Medicinalco (which had a group of enthusiastic self-experimenters that called itself the "Death Battalion") were exploring the possible use of disulfiram to treat intestinal parasites, and in the course of testing it on themselves, accidentally discovered its effects (Disulfiram-alcohol reaction) when alcohol is ingested, which led several years later to the drug called Antabuse.

==== Furan ====
Chauncey D. Leake, in 1930, took furan as a possible substitute for aspirin but it just gave him a splitting headache and painful urination that lasted three days.

==== Grapefruit juice ====
David G. Bailey, in 1989, was researching the effects of drinking alcohol while taking the then experimental drug felodipine.  It was usual in this kind of research to mix the alcohol with orange juice but Bailey did not like the taste of this drink so used grapefruit juice instead.  Bailey found that there was three times more felodipine in his, and fellow researchers', blood than had been reported by other scientists using orange juice.  It was later found that grapefruit juice suppresses an enzyme responsible for breaking down a large number of different drugs.

==== Ibuprofen ====
As part of the team who developed ibuprofen in the 1960s, Stewart Adams initially tested it on a hangover.

==== Psychoactive drugs ====

Friedrich Sertürner isolated morphine from opium in 1804. Morphine was the first-ever alkaloid isolated from any plant. Sertürner wanted to prove his findings to his colleague with a public experiment on himself and three other friends.
Jacques-Joseph Moreau published his study "Du Hachisch et de l'aliénation mentale" in 1845. He self-experimented with hashish and observed its varying effects on other people. Moreau insisted that researchers should self-experiment to gain understanding of the altered states of consciousness produced by psychoactive substances.
Psychopharmacologist Arthur Heffter isolated mescaline from the peyote cactus in 1897 and conducted experiments on its effects by comparing the effects of peyote and mescaline on himself.
Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic properties of LSD in 1943 by accidentally absorbing it and later intentionally ingesting it to verify that the effects were caused by LSD. He was also the first to isolate psilocybin from psilocybin mushrooms and self-experimented with it to prove it to be the active principle of psilocybin mushroom's psychoactive effects.
Timothy Leary took LSD and was a well-known proponent of the social use of the drug in the 1960s.
Alexander Shulgin synthesized and self-experimented with a variety of psychoactive drugs, notably MDMA. He developed a system known as the Shulgin Rating Scale for his research group to use during the self-experimentation of psychedelics.

=== Gases ===

==== Hydrogen ====

Around 1886, Nicholas Senn pumped nearly six litres of hydrogen through his anus.  Senn used a rubber balloon holding four US gallons connected to a rubber tube inserted in the anus.  An assistant sealed the tube by squeezing the anus against it.  The hydrogen was inserted by squeezing the balloon while monitoring the pressure on a manometer.  Senn had previously carried out this experiment on dogs to the point of rupturing the intestine.  Senn was a pioneer of using this technique to determine if the bullet in gunshot wounds had penetrated the intestinal tract.  In experiments on gunshot wounds to dogs, Senn verified that the gas escaping from the wound was hydrogen by setting light to it.
Reports that Senn used helium in this experiment are almost certainly erroneous.  Helium was first detected on Earth in 1882, but not isolated until 1895, and extractable reserves not found until 1903.

==== Synthetic gases ====
Humphry Davy self-experimented with breathing of several different gases, most notably nitrous oxide.

=== Genes ===

Self-experimentation with gene therapies have been reported.  Every gene therapy has a unique risk of harm, including the risk associated with the gene delivery method (i.e., the particular viral vector or form of transfection) that is used and the risk associated with a specific genetic modification. Examples of potential risks for some gene therapies include tissue damage and an immune response to foreign DNA, among many others.
In 2017, biohacker Jo Zayner publicly injected herself with CRISPR, a gene-editing technology, during a biotechnology conference in San Francisco. Zayner targeted the myostatin gene, which encodes a protein that inhibits muscle growth, acting as a natural regulator to prevent excessive muscle development. By using CRISPR technology, she aimed to "knock out" this gene in the muscle cells of her forearm. The intent was to disrupt the gene's function, potentially allowing for localized muscle growth.

=== Pain ===
Thomas Lewis and Jonas Kellgren studied pain in the 1930s.  To do this, they injected hypertonic saline into various parts of their own bodies.
In 1983, entomologist Justin O. Schmidt released a paper detailing what he called the Schmidt sting pain index based on his own personal reactions to the stings of various insects of the Hymenoptera order, rating them on a range from 0 to 4. His 1990 revised paper covered 78 such species.

=== Physical experiments ===