Thank God for OH&S
June 24th 2008 09:42
Last week I saw a show on the ABC called Anaesthesia, which described how pain-free surgery came about. Perhaps the most striking thing about this great breakthrough in medical science though, was how much dangerous self-experimentation was involved.
In the 19th century, Horace Wells had been attending "laughing gas" parties, common back then, and so began pioneering anesthetics by self-administering nitrous oxide, ether and chloroform. After some trials, Wells decided to make himself the guinea pig and was the first to go under nitrous oxide and had his own wisdom tooth extracted, successfully and painless, for the first time. Now officially recognised as the person who first demonstrated anaesthesia, Wells actually became addicted to chloroform which brought on a state of mental derangement which resulted in a hostile act for which Wells was imprisoned. He later committed suicide by slitting an artery, and yes, blocked out the pain with chloroform.
But this is just one example of a mad scientist who has put their own life at risk in order to prove their hypothesis. There was the German microbiologist von Pettenkofer who drank a glass full of culture medium with Vibrio cholerae to prove that it wouldn't give him cholera. He managed not to, but he did commit suicide after a cholera outbreak proved his anti-germ hypothesis disastrously wrong.
Then there is the 18th-century German-Swedish chemist, Cark Wilhelm Scheele, who discovered chlorine and co-discovered nitrogen and oxygen, and because of the trend for tasting their own distillations back then, died at age 44 from suspected heavy metal poisoning.
Marie Curie, who discovered radium, performed a great deal of radiation research and her constant exposure to radiation led to her death from leukemia. (On the upshot, Curie is the first and only person to receive two Nobel prizes in science in two different fields: chemistry and physics).
Robert Bunsen (as in Bunsen Burner) was a bit reckless. He nearly died twice of arsenic poisoning and shortly after these near-misses, lost the sight in his right eye after an explosion of cacodyl cyanide.
Well this is all a bit morbid and, sadly, there are too many scientists to name who have been killed or injured in the pursuit of knowledge. But self-experimentation has not always ended in tragedy. Perhaps one of the most famous cases of self-experimentation was the Aussie physician Barry Marshall who downed the contents of a Petri dish laden with Helicobacter pylori bacteria to prove that it was the cause of stomach ulcers, contrary to the belief of most doctors and scientists. He picked up the the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his efforts.
Maybe us scientists (or at least most of us) have it easy today. With the current strict OH&S regulations, we can only hope there won't be the tragic tales of today's scientists who have suffered illness because of their own curiosity.
In the 19th century, Horace Wells had been attending "laughing gas" parties, common back then, and so began pioneering anesthetics by self-administering nitrous oxide, ether and chloroform. After some trials, Wells decided to make himself the guinea pig and was the first to go under nitrous oxide and had his own wisdom tooth extracted, successfully and painless, for the first time. Now officially recognised as the person who first demonstrated anaesthesia, Wells actually became addicted to chloroform which brought on a state of mental derangement which resulted in a hostile act for which Wells was imprisoned. He later committed suicide by slitting an artery, and yes, blocked out the pain with chloroform.
But this is just one example of a mad scientist who has put their own life at risk in order to prove their hypothesis. There was the German microbiologist von Pettenkofer who drank a glass full of culture medium with Vibrio cholerae to prove that it wouldn't give him cholera. He managed not to, but he did commit suicide after a cholera outbreak proved his anti-germ hypothesis disastrously wrong.
Then there is the 18th-century German-Swedish chemist, Cark Wilhelm Scheele, who discovered chlorine and co-discovered nitrogen and oxygen, and because of the trend for tasting their own distillations back then, died at age 44 from suspected heavy metal poisoning.
Marie Curie, who discovered radium, performed a great deal of radiation research and her constant exposure to radiation led to her death from leukemia. (On the upshot, Curie is the first and only person to receive two Nobel prizes in science in two different fields: chemistry and physics).
Robert Bunsen (as in Bunsen Burner) was a bit reckless. He nearly died twice of arsenic poisoning and shortly after these near-misses, lost the sight in his right eye after an explosion of cacodyl cyanide.
Well this is all a bit morbid and, sadly, there are too many scientists to name who have been killed or injured in the pursuit of knowledge. But self-experimentation has not always ended in tragedy. Perhaps one of the most famous cases of self-experimentation was the Aussie physician Barry Marshall who downed the contents of a Petri dish laden with Helicobacter pylori bacteria to prove that it was the cause of stomach ulcers, contrary to the belief of most doctors and scientists. He picked up the the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his efforts.
Maybe us scientists (or at least most of us) have it easy today. With the current strict OH&S regulations, we can only hope there won't be the tragic tales of today's scientists who have suffered illness because of their own curiosity.
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