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Human experimentation involving real people will always stir up heated debates. On one hand, these experiments can yield valuable knowledge that could improve future medical advancements. On the other, they raise a host of ethical dilemmas. As morally responsible individuals, we must find a way to strike a balance. The ideal situation would involve conducting experiments that minimize harm to the participants. Unfortunately, this list highlights cases where the opposite occurred. It's unimaginable how much pain these individuals endured as they were treated like mere subjects in a cruel experiment, with those in charge playing the role of God.
10. Surgical Procedures to Cure Madness
Dr. Henry Cotton was convinced that localized infections were the cause of mental illness. When he became the head of an insane asylum in Trenton in 1907, he implemented a controversial approach called “surgical bacteriology.” Over the years, Cotton and his team conducted thousands of invasive surgeries on patients, frequently without their consent. First, they removed teeth and tonsils; if this wasn’t sufficient, they would proceed to remove internal organs, believing they were responsible for the mental issues. Cotton had such faith in his methods that he even experimented on himself and his own family. He removed teeth from himself, his wife, and his two sons, one of whom also had part of his colon taken out.
Cotton asserted that his treatments had a remarkable success rate in curing patients, a claim that quickly drew sharp criticism from those who found his methods appalling. On one occasion, he defended the deaths of 49 patients who underwent colectomies, arguing that they were already suffering from “end-stage psychosis” before the surgeries. An independent review later showed that Cotton had exaggerated the results significantly. After his death in 1933, the surgeries at the asylum were halted, and his views faded into obscurity. Nonetheless, critics acknowledged that Cotton was genuinely intent on curing his patients, though in a misguided, deluded manner.
9. Non-Anesthetic Vaginal Surgery
J. Marion Sims, often celebrated as a pioneer in American gynecology, conducted a notorious surgical study on several African-American slave women during the 1840s. The focus of the study, which lasted for three years, was a surgical remedy for vesicovaginal fistula, a condition that causes an abnormal connection between the bladder and the vagina. What’s particularly shocking is that Sims performed the surgeries without anesthesia. One of the women, Anarcha, underwent a staggering 30 surgeries before Sims finally achieved success.
This was not the only disturbing experiment Sims conducted. Along with other atrocities previously mentioned, he also attempted to treat infants of slaves suffering from trismus (a condition similar to lockjaw in tetanus) by using a shoemaker’s awl to forcibly align their cranial bones.
8. The Accidental Release of Bubonic Plague
Richard Strong, a doctor and director of the Biological Laboratory at the Philippines Bureau of Science, conducted several inoculation experiments on prisoners in Manila in an effort to develop an effective cholera vaccine. In one such test in 1906, he accidentally injected the inmates with the bubonic plague instead of the intended cholera vaccine, leading to the deaths of 13 individuals. A subsequent government inquiry into the incident confirmed that 'a plague serum was probably substituted for a bottle of cholera serum.'
Devastated by the failure, Strong withdrew for a time, only to return six years later to conduct another round of inoculations on the same inmates—this time with the disease Beriberi. Some of the subjects died, and those who survived were offered no compensation other than a few packs of cigarettes. Strong's infamous experiments were so disastrous that they were later referenced by Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg trials to defend their own horrifying medical research.
7. Slaves Scalded with Boiling Water
In a chilling example of misguided medical practices, Dr. Walter Jones suggested using boiling water as a remedy for typhoid pneumonia in the 1840s. He experimented on numerous slaves suffering from the disease, subjecting them to this extreme treatment over several months. One particularly harrowing account involved a 25-year-old man who, weakened by illness, was stripped of his clothing and forced to lie on his stomach. Dr. Jones then poured five gallons of scalding water onto his back.
However, the ordeal didn’t end there for the unfortunate patient—Dr. Jones insisted that the procedure be repeated every four hours, believing it was necessary for 'restoring the capillary circulation.' He later claimed that many patients were cured by this treatment, though no independent verification of such claims ever took place.
6. Electric Current Applied Directly to the Brain
Though the concept of electroshock therapy may sound painful in itself, Dr. Roberts Bartholow, a Cincinnati physician, escalated the practice to new extremes by directing an electric current directly into the brain of his patient. In 1847, Bartholow was treating Mary Rafferty, a woman suffering from an ulcer in her skull. The ulcer had progressed to the point where her brain was exposed.
With her consent, Bartholow inserted electrodes into her brain and varied the electrical current to study her reactions. He repeated the experiment eight times over four days. At first, Rafferty appeared unharmed, but as the tests continued, she became extremely agitated and eventually fell into a coma. Shortly after, she passed away.
The public outrage that followed was so intense that Bartholow was forced to leave his position. He later relocated to Philadelphia, where he secured a prestigious teaching role at Jefferson Medical College, proving that even controversial figures in the scientific community can sometimes catch a break.
5. Testicle Transplants
Leo Stanley, who served as the chief physician at San Quentin prison from 1913 to 1951, held an outlandish theory: he believed that criminals had low testosterone levels and that increasing these levels in male inmates would decrease their criminal tendencies.
To test this hypothesis, Stanley performed a series of strange surgeries in which he transplanted the testicles of newly executed criminals into living prisoners. Due to the limited number of available human testicles (with an average of only three executions per year), he eventually turned to using animal testicles, which he processed into a liquid and injected into the inmates' skin.
By 1922, Stanley claimed to have performed these surgeries on more than 600 prisoners. He also asserted that the surgeries were effective, recounting one case where a senile Caucasian inmate became lively and energetic after receiving the testicles of an executed African-American man.
4. Shock Therapy And LSD For Kids
Lauretta Bender is perhaps best remembered for creating the Bender-Gestalt test, a psychological assessment tool designed to evaluate a child’s motor skills and cognitive development. However, Bender’s work extended beyond this, delving into more contentious research. As the psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital in the 1940s, she conducted daily shock treatments on 98 children in an attempt to cure what she called 'childhood schizophrenia.'
Bender claimed that these electric shock treatments were highly effective, with only a small portion of the children experiencing a relapse. To further complicate matters, she also administered large doses of potent hallucinogens like LSD and psilocybin (found in psychedelic mushrooms) to the children, often for extended periods. Although it was never conclusively verified, rumors suggest that her funding might have come from the infamous CIA's MK-ULTRA program.
3. Experimental Spinal Taps on Children
Although lumbar punctures, also known as spinal taps, are common procedures used for diagnosing neurological issues, the process is undeniably painful. In 1896, pediatrician Arthur Wentworth sought to test this by performing the procedure on a young girl. Observing her discomfort, Wentworth suspected that the procedure, thought to be painless at the time, was actually quite agonizing. To confirm his hypothesis, he repeated the procedure on 29 infants and toddlers.
He ultimately concluded that although the procedure caused temporary discomfort, it proved invaluable in diagnosing various health conditions. Wentworth's conclusions sparked differing opinions among his peers—some applauded his work, while a lone critic dismissed it as nothing more than 'human vivisection.' The growing public outrage surrounding the experiments eventually led Wentworth to resign from his position at Harvard Medical School.
2. Skin-Hardening Experiments
Dermatologist Albert Kligman conducted a thorough series of experiments on inmates at Holmesburg Prison during the 1960s. One such experiment was sponsored by the U.S. Army, aiming to discover methods for strengthening the skin. The hypothesis was that tougher skin could shield soldiers from harmful chemical agents in combat zones. Kligman applied various chemical treatments to the prisoners, but the only significant result was lasting scars and considerable pain.
Pharmaceutical companies also compensated Kligman for using his inmates as test subjects for their products. Although the participants were compensated, they were not fully informed about the purpose of the experiments or the potential negative effects they might endure. Many of the chemical mixtures led to severe blisters and burns on the skin. Kligman was known for his cold, methodical approach to working with the inmates during his time at the prison. In fact, upon his first arrival at the facility, he remarked, 'All I saw before me were acres of skin.'
Ultimately, public outcry and an ensuing investigation forced Kligman to terminate his research and erase all records related to the experiments. Tragically, the former test subjects were never compensated for their suffering, while Kligman went on to profit significantly from the invention of Retin-A, the 'go-to' treatment for acne. Sometimes, life just isn’t fair.
1. The Guatemala Syphilis Experiment
In 2010, a deeply unethical syphilis experiment was uncovered when a professor researching the notorious Tuskegee Study discovered that the same health organization had conducted a comparable study in Guatemala. This discovery led the White House to form an investigation committee, which found that government-funded researchers had intentionally infected 1,300 Guatemalans with syphilis in 1946.
The two-year study aimed to determine whether penicillin could effectively treat syphilis once a person was already infected. To achieve this, the researchers paid prostitutes to intentionally spread the disease to unsuspecting individuals—mostly soldiers, prisoners, and psychiatric patients. As a result, 83 people lost their lives. These horrific findings prompted President Obama to personally apologize to both the Guatemalan president and the people of Guatemala.
