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"Two of the authors examined the ethics and regulation of self-experiments intensively, culminating in a journal publication. There are 14 Nobel Prizes awarded to self-experimenting scientists, with 7 Nobel Prizes in the area of their self-experiment, and no ethical obstructions to self-experimentations. There are 473 documented self-experiments, 48 of them since 1975, with multiples of this number estimated."

This reminds me of an interesting book on the history of self-experimentation in medicine called "Who Goes First":

https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Lawrence-Altman/dp/052...

Self-experimentation used to be a lot more common in medicine.

There's an interesting history of it in a book called Who Goes First?

https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Lawrence-Altman/dp/052...

⬐ DantesKite

Thanks for the book recommendation. That one looks very interesting.

⬐ HWR_14

One of the two winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine from 2005 (Barry Marshall) gave himself ulcers just to prove he understood causation and the cure. He and his partner (Robin Warren) in the research won the prize for that treatment.

⬐ saalweachter

I was told a story about a neuroscience study that involved paralyzing the lead author with curare and manually manipulating his eyeball to study his perception as a result of the manipulation; I was told it was never repeated, although a quick Google to find a reference revealed at least one similar study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232712/), so I guess it's more popular than it used to be.

Another famous one was Werner Forssmann, the first doctor to perform a cardiac catheterization, who performed the operation on himself first (then walked over to the X-ray room to get a picture to prove he succeeded).

Interestingly, in the past there was a lot more self-experimentation done by researchers.

The history of such self-experimentation is chronicled in a book called "Who Goes First?":

https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Lawrence-Altman/dp/052...

There's an interesting book called "Who Goes First?"[1] about something that used to be much more common than it is today: self-experimentation in medicine.

[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Lawrence-Altman/dp/052...

⬐ phaedrus441

Hadn’t heard of this. Just got a used copy for myself through Bookfinder!

⬐ sleepyK

Hey... Thanks for mentioning Bookfinder. Seems like a great resource. I ordered a copy myself as well. :)

⬐ bookofjoe

This. 20 years on the internet and right now is when I first learn of Bookfinder, which looks like a wonderful resource. Just like HN, where I was just reading and learning from the comments on this remarkable self-operation when, like you, I serendipitously stumbled on Bookfinder. HN is one of the few places online where I can count on finding an unexpected wormhole into a different knowledge universe. My favorite website of them all.

⬐ senortumnus

Ethics is great and all but makes it hard to do much original research. This sounds crass but try getting a very routine IRB proposal passed, and you'll see what I mean.

Self experimentation remains relatively out of reach of the ethicists and so should be kept in mind for the more creative researcher types.

⬐ dr_dshiv

Yes, amen. And what better reason to have children than to have accessible human subjects?

⬐ TeMPOraL

Preferably twins, so you can have a control group.

See also, an old story by Scott Alexander: https://archive.fo/eSbZb.

There's an interesting book that delves further in to this:

Who Goes First?: The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine

https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Self-Experimentation-M...

Self-experimentation has a long history in medicine. An interesting book on it is "Who Goes First?"

https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Self-Experimentation-M...

"Brazenly, he sampled a few drops of this extract himself"[1]

These days if a researcher dared confess that he tried some research compound on himself he'd be charged with loss of objectivity, or be considered crazy or just plain weird. But not too long ago self-experimentation by researchers was quite a common and accepted practice. It could even be considered the ethical thing to do: before letting the compound be tried by others you should of course try it yourself.

There's a book on the history of self-experimentation in medicine, called "Who Goes First?"[2]

[1] - "he" being Justinus Kerner, "the first scientist to publish an accurate and comprehensive description of the disease"

[2] - https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Self-Experimentation-M...

⬐ dmm

Another example is Werner Forssmann, the inventor of cardiac catheterization

""" In 1929, while working in Eberswalde, he performed the first human cardiac catheterisation. He ignored his department chief and persuaded the operating-room nurse in charge of the sterile supplies, Gerda Ditzen, to assist him. She agreed, but only on the promise that he would do it on her rather than on himself. However, Forssmann tricked her by restraining her to the operating table and pretending to locally anaesthetise and cut her arm whilst actually doing it on himself.[3] He anesthetized his own lower arm in the cubital region and inserted a uretic catheter into his antecubital vein, threading it partly along before releasing Ditzen (who at this point realised the catheter was not in her arm) and telling her to call the X-ray department. They walked some distance to the X-ray department on the floor below where under the guidance of a fluoroscope he advanced the catheter the full 60 cm into his right ventricular cavity. This was then recorded on X-Ray film showing the catheter lying in his right atrium. """ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Forssmann#Life