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Weird science and weird scientists throughout history

Electrified Sheep
& Elephants on Acid

My newest book, Electrified Sheep, which is packed full of mad scientists, is currently available in the UK. The US edition is coming out in 2012. My previous book, Elephants on Acid, is also still available everywhere. Click on either image for more info.





Categories

Toxinology
Topics from the archives of the Mad Science Museum related to the study of toxinology (poisonous toxins). Arranged in descending chronological order.

AW Blair: Effects of the Black Widow on Man (1933)

Dr. Allan Walker Blair
In November 1933, University of Alabama professor Allan Walker Blair used a pair of forceps to place a female black widow spider against the index finger of his left hand. Immediately the spider sunk its chitinous claws into his skin, twisting its body from side to side as if to drive them in deeper. Blair held the spider in this position for ten seconds, as its venom entered his body.

Blair later explained his actions as part of an experimental study of the effects of the bite of the female black widow on man. A curious aspect of this experiment was that the effects of the bite were already known. As Blair himself noted, a fellow entomologist, William Baerg, had conducted a similar self-experiment twelve years earlier. Baerg had been rushed to the hospital nine hours after being bitten, where he spent three days tossing and turning, wracked by nightmarish, feverish pain. Blair was not only aware of this, but decided to allow the spider to bite him for twice as long as Baerg had risked. As a result, his suffering was proportionately greater.
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