Mad Science Museum http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/ en curator@madsciencemuseum.com Copyright 2012 2012-06-12T05:10:55+00:00 Dr. Blatz’s Trick Chair of Terror, 1924 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/blatzs_trick_chair http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/blatzs_trick_chair
He designed a trick chair that would collapse backwards without warning when he flipped an electric switch. The chair was padded, so its occupant wouldn't get hurt. But Blatz figured that the sensation of abruptly falling backwards would provoke a strong, measurable reaction in subjects. He thought it would be a novel way to study the physiology of fear.


Diagram of Blatz's trick chair. When the hook (A) at the top was released,
the chair plunged backwards.

Eighteen subjects (7 male and 11 female) participated in the study. Blatz gave them no warning about the nature of the experiment. In fact, he told them the experience would be very relaxing. He said they would merely sit in a padded chair for 15 minutes, while he recorded their heart rate. He suggested they might even fall asleep during the experiment.

Emphasizing that they needed to be relaxed, Blatz blindfolded each subject before leading them into the room with the trick chair. He told them this was "to avoid visual distraction." Then he tied their arms and legs to the chair. This, he said, was "so that all random movements will be eliminated."

After securely fastening the subject in the chair, Blatz attached electrodes to their arm, to measure heart rate and electrical conductivity of the skin. He used an electrical pneumograph to measure the subject's respiration. Then Blatz went into an adjoining room. leaving the subject alone.

To lull the subjects into a false sense of security, Blatz made them sit through three fifteen-minute sessions (spread over a few days) during which nothing happened. By the fourth sitting, the subjects had become accustomed to the routine. It was then that he triggered the surprise. After they had been in the chair for a few minutes and were fully relaxed, Blatz pressed the switch, the chair collapsed, and the subject pitched backward. Blatz offered this description of their reactions:

"The observations of the subjects after the fall, of course, varied, but they were sufficiently in agreement to indicate the arousal of genuine fear in naive subjects. Some examples of these remarks were, 'startled,' 'surprised,' 'frightened,' scared,' etc. In most cases the subjects cried out, and some called the experimenter by name. They all made some effort to escape, thinking an accident had happened. In all cases they acknowledged that they had not anticipated 'anything like it at all.' From these statements, it was concluded that the stimulus was wholly unexpected, and unsuspected."

The electrodes registered the effect of the fright. The hearts of the subjects began hammering, and their breathing rapidly increased. Blatz also observed "striking changes in the electrical conditions of the body in the nature of an increased development of the electromotive force."


The physiological response of a subject to a collapsing chair

After the initial fall, Blatz couldn't surprise the subjects in the same way again. But he conducted several more sittings with each subject, during which he told them to expect a fall, but not exactly when. Although the subjects didn't report the same level of shock in these subsequent sittings, Blatz found that their heart rates nevertheless increased and their breathing quickened whenever the chair suddenly collapsed beneath them.

Blatz conducted this experiment as part of his graduate work at the University of Chicago. He subsequently became a well-known child psychologist who worked with, and authored a book about, the Dionne quintuplets.]]> Human Subjects, Psychology, Deceptive Experiments, Fear, 1900-1949, United States, 2012-06-12T05:10:55+00:00 Scientists discuss their belief in God, a Collier’s magazine feature, 1951 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/scientists_belief_in_god http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/scientists_belief_in_god





















Source: Collier's magazine, August 11, 1951.]]> Religion, 1950-1979, United States, 2012-06-03T15:14:54+00:00 An experiment to determine when billboards become visible to drivers, 1953 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/billboard_experiment http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/billboard_experiment







Conducted at the Iowa State College Experiment Station. (via Duke University Libraries)]]> 1950-1979, United States, Sight, 2012-05-29T19:58:42+00:00 A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/a_time_lapse_map_of_every_nuclear_explosion_since_1945 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/a_time_lapse_map_of_every_nuclear_explosion_since_1945
Created by artist Isao Hashimoto. Link: ctbto.org]]> Military Research, Nuclear Physics, 1900-1949, 2012-05-28T13:43:53+00:00 Photographing a mule at the instant its head is blown off by dynamite, 1881 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/photographing_a_mule_at_the_instant_its_head_is_blown_off_by_dynamite http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/photographing_a_mule_at_the_instant_its_head_is_blown_off_by_dynamite
Researchers immediately used this technology to study bodies in motion. Most famously, Eadweard Muybridge in 1878 took a series of images to study the galloping of a horse. Similarly, neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot used instantaneous photography to study the muscular movements of his human patients.

A more unusual application of the technology took place on June 6, 1881, when Mr. Van Sothen, photographer in charge at the United States School of Submarine Engineers in Willett's Point, New York, took an instantaneous photograph of a mule having its head blown off by dynamite. The mule was apparently old and was going to be put down anyway, so it was decided to "sacrifice the animal upon the altar of science."


The resulting photo

Eugene Griffin, First Lieutenant of Engineers, described the details of the experiment in a letter to Lieut. Col. H.L. Abbot:

On the 6th of June, 1881, an instantaneous view was taken, by your direction, of the execution of a condemned mule belonging to the Engineer Department. A small bag containing 6 ounces of dynamite and a fuse was fastened on the mule's forehead, the wires from the fuse connecting with a magneto-electric machine. The camera was placed at a distance of about 47 feet from the mule and properly focussed; the drop shutter was held up by a string, fastened to another fuse, which was placed in the same circuit with the first, so that both were fired simultaneously and the shutter allowed to drop. The result was a negative showing the mule in an upright position, but with his head blown off. This photograph has excited much interest and comment in the scientific world. A very narrow slit was used in the shutter, and as nearly as can be estimated the time of exposure was about 1/250 of a second. A 10 by 12 gelatino-bromide instantaneous Eastman dry plate was used, with a 4 D Dallmeyer lens, using the full opening.

Several months later Scientific American published an account of the experiment, including several engravings showing before and after scenes:

]]> Animals, Military Research, 1800s, United States, 2012-05-16T20:36:20+00:00 Locked in an airtight box with plants, 1771 & 2011 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/48_hours_with_plants http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/48_hours_with_plants StewartIn 1771, Joseph Priestley conducted an experiment that demonstrated the symbiotic relationship between plants and animals. When he placed either a mouse or a plant alone in a sealed glass container, it soon died. But when he placed the mouse and plant together in the container, they survived. He noted that each somehow made the air breathable for the other. In September 2011, Iain Stewart, professor of geoscience at Plymouth University, conducted a scaled-up version of this famous experiment. Instead of a single plant he used 150 plants, and instead of a mouse he used a person — himself.

Stewart conducted his experiment at the Eden Project, a large, botanical-themed visitor attraction in St. Austell, Cornwall. His container was an airtight Perspex tank, 8 meters long, 2 meters wide, and 2½ meters high. The plants inside it included miscanthus, banana plants, maize, and a variety of tropical herbs. He hoped to find out if he could survive for 48 hours sealed in the tank with the plants. The event was filmed by the BBC as part of a documentary, How Plants Made the World. Eden Project visitors were allowed to approach to within a meter of the container, observing him as if he were an animal on display in a zoo.

Stewart envisioned the public experiment as a way to dramatize the extent to which people rely on the oxygen produced by plants. He explained to The Independent: "That box, this experiment, is the planet. People don't think of plants as our life support system without which we wouldn't be able to function and life wouldn't be able to function."

Stewart entered the container at 10pm on the night of Thursday, September 15. His colleagues then sealed him in. Besides the plants, Stewart also had a mobile phone, hammock, laptop, chemical toilet, and exercise bike with him.

The first few hours Stewart spent in darkness. As he did so, the oxygen levels in the container dropped from 21% down to 12.5%, the equivalent of the atmosphere at an altitude of 4500 metres. Then, early in the morning of September 16, his colleagues turned on a bank of lights, and the plants began to photosynthesize, supplying him with oxygen. The lights remained on for the rest of the experiment.

Researchers from the University College London's Centre for Altitude Space and Extreme Environment Medicine and the Royal Free Hospital constantly monitored Stewart and the atmosphere inside the container. When carbon dioxide levels fell too low for the plants, they had Stewart exercise on the bike, causing him to breath harder and produce more carbon dioxide. Stewart communicated with his colleagues via walkie talkie.

Stewart achieved his goal of remaining inside the tank for 48 hours, although he did suffer severe headaches and fatigue — effects of the oxygen deprivation. He also had trouble sleeping because of the constant lights, high humidity, and high temperature (25 degrees Celsius). He emerged from the container on the night of Saturday, September 17.]]> Biology, Botany, Human Subjects, Self-Experiments, 2000s, United Kingdom, 2011-09-21T14:31:06+00:00 The Lice-Infested Underwear Experiment, 1942 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/lice_infested_underwear_experiment http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/lice_infested_underwear_experiment

The Louse Lab
Being infested with body lice (Pediculus humanis corporis) is not only unpleasant, but also potentially deadly, since lice are carriers of typhus. During World War II, medical authorities feared that the spread of lice among civilian refugees might cause a widespread typhus epidemic, leading to millions of deaths (as had happened in World War I). In an attempt to prevent this, in 1942 the Rockefeller Foundation, in collaboration with the federal government, funded the creation of a Louse Lab whose purpose was to study the biology of the louse and to find an effective means of preventing infestation. The Lab, located in New York City, was headed by Davis, a public health researcher, and Wheeler, an entomologist.

The first task for the Louse Lab was to obtain a supply of lice. They achieved this by collecting lice off a patient in the alcoholic ward of Bellevue Hospital. Then they kept the lice alive by allowing them to feed on the arms of medical students (who had volunteered for the job). In this way, the lab soon had a colony of thousands of lice. They determined that the lice were free of disease since the med students didn't get sick.

Next they had to find human hosts willing to serve as experimental subjects. For this they initially turned to homeless people, aka Bowery Bums, living in the surrounding city, whom they paid $7 each in return for agreeing first to be infected by the Louse Lab's lice and next to test experimental anti-louse powders. Unfortunately, the homeless people proved to be uncooperative subjects who often didn't follow the instructions given to them. Frustrated, Davis and Wheeler began to search for other, more reliable subjects.

Soon they identified conscientious objectors (COs) as potential guinea pigs. The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 allowed young men with religious objections to fighting to serve their country in alternative, nonviolent ways. They were put to work domestically at jobs such as building roads and dams, harvesting timber, or fighting forest fires. In 1942, prompted by the example of the British government, it occurred to U.S. officials that these young men were also a potential pool of experimental subjects for research, and they began to be made available to scientists for this purpose.

In theory the COs were always given a choice about whether or not to serve as guinea pigs. However, controversy lingers about how voluntary their choice really was since their options were limited (be a guinea pig for science, or do back-breaking manual labor). But for their part, the COs were often quite eager to volunteer for experiments. Sensitive to accusations that they were cowardly and unpatriotic, the experiments offered these young men a chance to do something that seemed more heroic than manual labor.

Eventually COs participated in a wide variety of experiments (perhaps the most famous of these was the Great Starvation Experiment conducted in Minnesota), but Davis and Wheeler (with their lice) were the first researchers to use American COs as experimental subjects.

Camp Liceum
Davis and Wheeler located a group of COs working at a camp in rural Campton, New Hampshire who seemed like ideal subjects. The setting was isolated and allowed for greater experimental control, the men were willing to cooperate, and best of all, the men didn't need to be paid! Arrangements were quickly made, and a side camp was established for the purpose of the experiment, 40 miles from the base camp. The volunteers nicknamed their new home "Camp Liceum".

In July 1942, Davis and Wheeler took the train up to New Hampshire to meet their volunteers and begin the experiment. Davis took his lice with him. He kept them alive during the journey by allowing them to feed on his own blood.

Davis also took along other equipment for the experiment — pairs of blue cotton undershorts and light cotton sleeveless jerseys into which cloth patches had been sewn infested with lice and their eggs. These were the undergarments the men would be required to wear.

Upon arrival, Davis explained the rules of the experiment to the men. They were going to be required to wear the lice-infested undergarments for 18 days without ever changing or removing them. They weren't allowed to purposefully kill the lice. Nor could they change their bedding. The only exception to these rules was that they were allowed to remove the undershirt if they got hot while working during the day. (Throughout the experiment the men continued working at their road construction duties.)

For the first nine days of the trial, the men simply wore the lice-infested undergarments. But during the second half of the trial, once they were fully crawling with bugs, they were divided into separate groups which were given different delousing powders to test. Again, Davis had specific instructions about how to apply the powders: "Spread it over your entire underwear and the armpits and crotch of outer clothing; pay particular attention to seams and folds. The better you spread it, the less they bite!"

Throughout the course of the trial, the researchers examined the men daily and counted the number of lice they found on them so that, after 18 days, they had accurate information about the efficacy of each powder.

Results
Between July and October, Davis and Wheeler conducted three separate trials. During the third trial, as it was growing colder, the men were given lice-infested long underwear to wear instead of the cotton undershorts, but otherwise the protocol remained the same each time. Overall, they tested 18 different delousing agents.

A volunteer later recalled that the first night of sleeping in the lice-infested underwear was usually the worst:

The first night was uncomfortable. The business of getting acquainted is often awkward, and possibly these laboratory-bred insects were just as embarrassed as were the campers. (It is hoped they slept better.) But, with few exceptions, there was no serious discomforture after that. The bites were no worse than those of the mosquito, and apart from a certain amount of uninhibited scratching in public, the men felt and behaved more or less normally.


For many of the men, the powders were far more uncomfortable than the lice, since some of the side-effects of the powders included staining of the skin, nasal and anal irritation, and burning of the scrotum. Davis reported that one of the powders caused, "a peculiar cherry-pink rubor of the lower portion of the scrotum. The skin was wrinkled and came off in dry bran-like scales; beneath the scales the epidermis was smooth and shiny."

Despite these discomforts, the men obediently did as they were told — although a few of them later admitted to taking off their underwear at night because they had felt excessively bothered by it. But they nevertheless kept the underwear with them in the bed, and Davis decided that this minor infraction didn't effect the end results. In fact, he praised the cooperation of the men.

After tabulating all the results, Davis and Wheeler didn't find any powder that was entirely ideal, although they did single out two of them they felt were the best of the bunch. But in an accident of historical timing, the efforts of all involved proved to be somewhat in vain, because soon after the conclusion of the experiment, the Department of Agriculture began testing a new powder, DDT, at its facility in Orlando, Florida. DDT proved far superior to anything that had been used before. In fact, it seemed like a miracle pesticide to researchers. It killed lice through nerve poisoning, but it didn't seem harmful to humans.

It was the use of DDT that prevented a typhus epidemic after World War II. As a result, the 32 volunteers couldn't claim to have contributed directly to this victory against the disease. But they nevertheless felt proud of their efforts. One volunteer drily remarked, "They also serve who only stand and scratch."]]> Human Subjects, Conscientious Objectors, Medical Research, 1900-1949, United States, Insects, 2011-09-20T15:22:09+00:00 The Great Starvation Experiment, 1944-1945 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/great_starvation_experiment http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/great_starvation_experiment

Group photo of the participants

The Purpose of the Experiment
starvation subject
Dr. Ancel Keys
Keys ran the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota. He had already achieved some fame as the designer of the army's K-rations — the portable combat food rations carried by American troops. (Rumors persist to this day that the "K" in K-rations stands for Keys, though the army has never confirmed this.)

The starvation experiment developed out of Keys' interest in nutrition. He realized that although millions of people in Europe were suffering from famine, there was little doctors could do to help them once the war was over, because almost no scientific information existed about the physiological effects of starvation. Keys convinced the military that a study of starvation could yield information that would have both humanitarian and practical benefits — because knowing the best rehabilitation methods could ensure the health of the population and thereby help democracy grow in Europe after the war. Having secured his funding, Keys set out on his novel experiment.

The Study Design
The basic design of Keys' study was simple: to starve some subjects (or, at least, bring them to near starvation) and then refeed them. To achieve this in a controlled, scientific fashion, Keys envisioned a year-long study divided into three parts: an initial three-month control period during which the food intake of the participants would be standardized, followed by six months of starvation, and then three months of rehabilitation.

To find subjects willing to put themselves through such prolonged deprivation, Keys recruited volunteers from among the ranks of conscientous objectors — young men who had chosen to join the Civilian Public Service as an alternative to military service. Many of these conscientous objectors, though not all, were members of the historic peace churches (Brethren, Quakers, and Mennonites).

Keys' staff prepared a brochure designed specifically to appeal to the idealism of these young men. Its cover showed three young children staring at empty bowls, above the words: "Will you starve that they be better fed?"


The strategy worked. Even though Keys offered the participants no money, and he warned that prolonged starvation might pose serious health risks, he received over 400 applications. Many conscientous objectors had been put to work in fairly menial jobs, such as repairing rural roads. So the experiment offered them the chance to do something that was both more challenging and seemed of greater humanitarian importance.

Keys carefully screened these applications before finally selecting thirty-six young men who he felt would be tough enough, physically and mentally, to endure what would be demanded of them during the experiment.

The men arrived in Minneapolis in November 1944 and found their way to Keys' Laboratory, which had been temporarily relocated, for the sake of the experiment, to forty threadbare but functional rooms located beneath the university football stadium. The men lived together in a large, dormitory-style room.

For the next week twelve weeks — the control period of the experiment — Keys standardized their diet, allowing them 3200 calories a day, while simultaneously putting them through a battery of tests to gather data on variables such as their heart size, blood volume, hearing, vision, fitness, body fat, and even sperm count. He also ordered the men to maintain an active lifestyle, working jobs in the lab and walking a minimum of 22 miles a week.

Starvation and Its Effects
On February 12, 1945, Keys abruptly cut the food intake of the men from 3200 calories a day down to 1570. The starvation phase of the experiment had begun. He carefully controlled the amount they ate by serving them two meals a day prepared and weighed by the cook he had on staff. He designed the meals to be carbohydrate rich and protein poor, simulating what people in Europe might be eating, with an emphasis on potatoes, cabbage, macaroni, and whole wheat bread (all in meager amounts). Despite the reduction in food, Keys insisted the men maintain their active lifestyle, including the 22-miles of walking each week.

Effects of the reduced food intake quickly became apparent. The men very soon showed a remarkable decline in strength and energy. Keys charted a 21-percent reduction in their strength, as measured by their performance on a back lift dynamometer. The men complained that they felt old and constantly tired.


Sam Legg before the experiment (left) and during it (right)

Next a kind of mental apathy took hold of the subjects. The men all had strong political opinions, but as the grip of hunger tightened, political affairs and world events faded into irrelevance for them. Even sex and romance lost their appeal. Food became their overwhelming priority. Some of the men obsessively read cookbooks, staring at pictures of food with an almost pornographic obsession.

Meal times became the high point of their day. They grew irritable if they weren't served their food exactly on time, or if they had to wait too long in line. Although the food was quite bland, to the men it tasted delicious. They lingered over the food, savoring every bite. Often they "souped" their meals — mixing everything with water to make it seem as if there was more.


Dinner Time

In between the two meals, Keys allowed them unlimited chewing gum, water, and black coffee, and the men took full advantage of these privileges, chewing as many as 40 packs of gum a day and downing up to 15 cups of coffee.

The depth of the psychological strain experienced by the subjects astonished Keys. Although they had all seemed fully committed to the experiment before it began — Keys had screened for this specifically — cheating became a major issue as an almost uncontrollable urge to seek out food gripped them. Keys eventually imposed a "buddy system", allowing none of the men out of the lab unless they were accompanied by a chaperone.


Subjects showing the effects of starvation


Taking a break to catch some rays

The stress proved too much for one of the men, twenty-four-year-old Franklin Watkins. He began having vivid, disturbing dreams of cannibalism in which he was eating the flesh of an old man. On trips into town (before the buddy system had been implemented), he cheated extravagantly, downing milk shakes and sundaes. Finally Keys confronted him, and Watkins broke down sobbing. Then he grew angry and threatened to kill Keys and take his own life. Keys immediately dismissed Watkins from the experiment and sent him to the psychiatric ward of the university hospital. There, after a few days on a normal diet, Watkins appeared entirely normal again, so the hospital released him. Watkins' breakdown occurred just a few weeks into the starvation phase of the experiment.

Keys later had to dismiss a second subject from the experiment, and he didn't use the data from several of the men in his final report because he suspected, though he couldn't prove, that somehow, despite his precautions, they had continued to cheat.

Physiological Changes
None of the men had been overweight to begin with, their average weight during the control period being only 152.7 pounds. So as they shed pounds they rapidly grew skeletally thin, their bones protruding from their skin at sharp angles. Keys carefully analyzed and recorded the other physiological changes they experienced.




He found that the heart rates of the men slowed dramatically, from an average of 55 beats per minute to 35. This was their metabolism slowing down, attempting to conserve calories. The frequency of their bowel movements fell to about one per week. Their blood volume dropped ten percent, and their hearts shrank in size.

Perhaps because of the amount of water they were drinking, the men developed edema (retention of water). Their ankles, knees, and faces swelled — an odd physical symptom given their otherwise skeletal appearance.

The skin of some of the men developed a coarse, rough appearance, as a result of the hardening of their hair follices. Other effects included dizziness, muscle soreness, reduced coordination, and ringing in their ears. But the creepiest change, which occurred in all of the men, was a whitening of their eyeballs as the blood vessels in their eyes shrank. Their eyes eventually appeared brilliantly, unnaturally white, as if made out of porcelain.

From the men's point of view, the most uncomfortable change was the lack of body fat. It became difficult for them to sit down for long periods of time because their bones would grind against the seats. They also felt cold all the time.

According to folklore, starvation had one positive physiological effect. It supposedly sharpened the senses. Keys hoped to debunk this, so he periodically tested the senses of the men. He found that, as he expected, starvation had no impact on vision, but surprisingly the hearing of all the men did improve as they lost weight. In particular, they heard better at lower frequencies. Keys theorized this was because of a lower production of earwax and an enlargement of their auditory canal as their ear tissues shrank.

Despite all these changes, the men, in their own minds, didn't perceive themselves as being excessively skinny. In fact, they began to think that everyone else looked too fat, rather than they themselves being too thin. Researchers later noted that this is the same mindset displayed by anorexics.

Rehabilitation
After six months of starvation, the men had lost almost a quarter of their weight, dropping from an average of 152.7 pounds down to 115.6 pounds. And as the end of the starvation phase approached, they eagerly awaited its conclusion, fantasizing about the meals they would then be able to feast upon. Finally the last day arrived, July 28, 1945. There was an air of revelry in the lab. But the next day, July 29, proved a bitter disappointment.

Although they were now in the rehabilitation phase, Keys didn't significantly increase their food levels. Instead, he divided them into four subgroups, which received 400, 800, 1200 or 1600 more calories than they had in starvation. He did this in order to investigate the optimum amount of calories for rehabilitation. But to the men — especially the men in the lowest calorie group — it seemed as if they were barely getting any more food than before. They still felt hungry all the time.

Keys simultaneously gave some of them vitamin and protein supplements, to see if these would aid their recovery. After a few weeks it became apparent to Keys that the supplements were doing nothing to help the men. In fact, the men in the lowest calorie group weren't recovering at all. The only thing that seemed to help was more food. So Keys boosted the food intake of each group by 800 calories, and this had a quick and positive effect. He eventually concluded that in order to recover from starvation, a person needs around 4000 calories a day to rebuild their strength.


Dan Miller during the starvation phase (left) and during the recovery phase (right)

The End of the Experiment
The last meal of the study was served on October 20, 1945. The men were subsequently free to depart and eat as they pleased. However, Keys convinced twelve of them to stay on at the lab for another eight weeks so he could monitor them during an "unrestricted rehabilitation" phase. Left to their own devices, Keys observed these men consume over 5000 calories a day, on average. And on occasion, some of them feasted on as many as 11,500 calories in a single day. For many months, the men reported having a sensation of hunger they couldn't satisfy, no matter how much they ate.

Keys published his full report about the experiment in 1950. It was a massive, two-volume work titled The Biology of Human Starvation. To this day, it remains the most comprehensive scientific examination of the effects of famine. And given modern restrictions on research with human subjects, it seems unlikely that an experiment on a similar scale could be repeated today.

Keys' report highlighted the degree to which what we eat can alter both the mind and the body. However, he also drew an optimistic lesson from the experiment. His data revealed that starvation didn't appear to have any significant, long-term negative impacts on health. The human body had evidently been designed by evolution to withstand long periods without food.

With the starvation experiment behind him, Keys launched into a study of the link between high-fat diets, cholesterol levels, and heart disease. This work eventually earned him international fame, as he became widely known for his warning that high-fat diets increased the risk of heart attacks.

As for the starvation subjects, they drifted back into the general population. Many continued to pursue humanitarian efforts. Quite a few of them volunteered to help with the relief effort in Europe. Three of them became chefs.

Almost sixty years later, in 2003, 19 of the original 36 volunteers remained alive. Of these survivors, 18 were interviewed as part of an oral history project about the experiment. They admitted that there had been some lingering aftereffects of the experiment. For instance, for many years they were haunted by a fear that food might be taken away from them again. But overall, they uniformly praised the experience as one of the most important events in their lives. And they insisted that if they were young men again, they would do it again.]]> Human Subjects, Conscientious Objectors, Physiology, 1900-1949, United States, Nutrition and Food, 2011-09-11T21:05:41+00:00 The Swastika Chromosomes of D.F. Jones, 1940 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/swastika_chromosomes http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/swastika_chromosomes
D.F. JonesDonald Forsha Jones (1890-1963) was an American genetics researcher at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven. He's most famous for improving corn production through his introduction of double-cross hybridization. The dominance of corn in world agriculture rests, in many ways, on his scientific contributions. But there was an unusual, slightly eccentric moment in his career — the moment when he publicly announced his discovery of swastika-shaped chromosomes in a cancerous corn plant.

He made the announcement in April 1940, during the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, at the end of an otherwise quite dry presentation about "Growth changes resulting from chromosome arrangement." His announcement was so unusual that it got picked up by the media. The Science News-Letter reported as follows:

Dr. Jones found the perverted Sign of the Crooked Cross in the cells of a corn plant that had gone wrong. The grains were partly aborted, some of them showing little swellings like malignant tumors. When he made microscopic preparations of cell tissues he found that two of the long chromosomes had become crossed at right angles. Where they crossed there had been a break or bruise and the two had grown together. Their ends had bent over, giving the whole figure a sinister semblance to a swastika.

For Jones, his discovery wasn't merely a meaningless curiosity but suggested parallels between politics and nature. The New York Times quoted him as saying, "The swastika is a sign of malignant growth not only in the political field but in living matter as well." This pronouncement, though patriotically anti-Nazi, didn't meet with universal approval. One columnist, Edwin C. Hill, argued that science should remain above politics:

we find this swastika-chromosome discovery hard to take, although the cancerous derivation of the symbol would seem to meet the mood of the moment in this country. Nature never tagged anything 'good' or 'evil.' In fact, she has been so remiss in this matter that she has left the argument wide open, in barroom discussions and university seminars and all between.

The Swastika-Chromosome Diagram
During his presentation, Jones showed a diagram of the swastika-chromosomes. It's not clear what became of this diagram. It doesn't appear in any of his published papers. Nor did the archivist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station have any knowledge of it, when contacted. But it's possible the diagram did make it into print in an article authored by Frances Clark and Frederick Copeland, published in the American Journal of Botany in April 1940 (the same month as Jones's presentation). The article, titled "Chromosome Aberrations in the Endosperm of Maize," included the following illustration of some maize chromosomes reforming into the shape of swastikas.

What makes it probable that this is Jones's diagram is that the authors credit Jones for his "many helpful suggestions" as well as for "supplying the material used".

Significance
Jones's swastika chromosomes could be dismissed as nothing more than pareidolia — the scientific equivalent of a farmer finding a potato shaped like Richard Nixon, or a housewife finding the image of the Virgin Mary in her grilled cheese sandwich.

However, they did have some deeper import. At the time, scientists didn't have a clear understanding of the link between genetics and cancer. Many believed that cancer caused chromosomal abnormalities, not the other way around. But Jones noted that these strange, swastika-shaped chromosomes were causing cancer — they weren't being caused by it. He stated:

Up to the present time it has been considered generally that chromosomal alterations are the result and not the cause of abnormal growth... It is now apparent why external agents such as physical radiations, carcinogenic chemicals, hormones, viruses, parasitic organisms and what next, can produce the same result as inherited tendencies, either by increasing the frequency of chromosome breaks and relocations or by altering the growth-regulating regions in the chromosomes."

But even so, it wasn't until the mid-1950s that the danger of genetic damage, caused by phenomena such as radiation, would be more widely recognized within the scientific community.]]> Botany, Genetics, 1900-1949, United States, Cancer, 2011-08-29T15:56:04+00:00 The Quest for Bulletproof Skin http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/the_quest_for_bulletproof_skin http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/the_quest_for_bulletproof_skin Associated Press story reported that Dutch artist Jalila Essaidi, in collaboration with Utah State researcher Randy Lewis, created "bulletproof skin". Or, at least, skin that's somewhat bulletproof. The material was able to stop a bullet fired at reduced speed from a .22 caliber rifle, though not one fired at normal speed.


An undated image by Essaidi showing the bulletproof skin stopping a bullet.

Lewis is well known as a silk expert. He's most famous for genetically engineering goats to produce spider silk in their milk. When Essaidi learned of Lewis's goat-silk, she came up with the idea of using some of it to create bulletproof skin. She wrote on her blog:

By implementing this bulletproof matrix of spider silk produced by transgenic goats in human skin I want to explore the social, political, ethical and cultural issues surrounding safety in a world with access to new biotechnologies. Issues which arise on the basis of ancient human desire for invulnerability. It is legend that Achilles, the central character of Homer’s Iliad was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. Will we in the near future due to biotechnology no longer need to descend from a godly bloodline in order to have traits like invulnerability?

In this video clip, Essaidi discusses her project:


Unfortunately, Lewis didn't have enough of the goat-silk to spare for Essaidi's project. So Instead he sent her some silk from genetically engineered silkworms. Essaidi was then able to get human skin to grow on a lattice of this silk. She placed the skin/silk combination on a gelatin block and fired bullets at it.

Lewis responded to the news that the material had stopped low-velocity bullets by saying, "We were more than a little surprised that the final skin kept the bullet from going in there... It still ended up 2 inches into the torso, so it would not have saved your life. But without a doubt the most exciting part for us is the fact that they were able to recreate the skin on top of our fibers. It's something we haven't done. Nobody has worked in that area."

Lewis reportedly doesn't think that making skin that can stop bullets is going to be a major research focus going forward, but he does think that such silk/skin could have some surgical applications. According to the AP, "He said the material's strength and elasticity would enable doctors to cover large areas without worrying about it ripping out — a big advantage over small skin grafts."

Percy Terry's (non) bulletproof skin
This isn't the first time someone has dreamed of creating bulletproof skin. Going back to 1915, one finds the strange story of amateur researcher Percy Terry. Terry created an ointment that he believed could, after repeated applications, harden the skin so much that it would become bulletproof. He hoped to sell his ointment to the military, envisioning armies of bulletproof men who could charge across battlefields, invulnerable to anything but cannons. He figured that the war in Europe would provide a large market for his invention.

But naturally Terry first had to test his invention, and he chose to do so on himself. After smearing himself with the ointment for weeks, he finally decided it was time for the ultimate test: shooting himself. The Los Angeles Times reported what happened:

Saturday was the time for the experiment. He rubbed one more coating over his face and then he bought a revolver and a shot gun to make the final test. Tomorrow he would be a multimillionaire. But he had hardly money with which to buy the ammunition for the experiment.

He took the revolver, put it to his face and pulled the trigger three times. The bullets passed through his cheek, and the shock threw him back. He thought his skin had deflected the missiles, feeling no pain, further than a smarting that he thought came from the impact of the bullets. Then warm streams began to flow down, but his toughened skin did not announce the fluid until it crawled to his clothing, staining it.

With horrified disappointment, Percy Terry went to a mirror and saw his cheek had been punctured. He was anguished beyond control with the failure of his test.

"Well, a bullet may be too heavy to stop just yet," he shouted to himself so neighbors could hear him. "But I know I can stop shot from a gun."

So he lifted the muzzle of the gun to his face and fired. He fell. The lower part of his face was torn away. Unconscious he was taken to the County Hospital yesterday. And he slid away to the camp of martyred experimenters. And with him went the secret that was to have stopped the wars of the world."
]]> Amateurs, Biology, Medical Research, Tissue Engineering, Military Research, 2000s, Western Europe, Holland, Self-Experiments, 2011-08-22T15:29:16+00:00 Does college make co-eds communist? - 1934 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/does_college_make_co_eds_communist http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/does_college_make_co_eds_communist
Corey administered the Thurstone Attitude Scale to 234 female freshmen. (He seems to have done this at the University of Wisconsin, though he didn't say so specifically.) He examined their attitudes to six areas: Reality of God, War, Patriotism, Communism, Evolution, and Church. A year later he retested 100 of these students when they were sophomores.

It turned out that their attitudes only changed slightly, but the change was in the direction of liberalism. Corey wrote in a 1940 article in the Journal of Social Psychology, "The opinions of the students appeared to have undergone at least a degree of liberalization during their one year of attendance at a University." However, he also noted that students who scored higher on intelligence tests showed less change than did those who scored lower. The following table detailed how the attitudes of the young women changed with respect to each topic:

Although Corey's article suggested that the college experience caused a slight shift towards liberalism, when he presented his findings at the Midwestern Psychological Association convention in May 1940, he toned down this finding, perhaps fearing it would cause families to deny their daughters higher education. Instead, he assured people that it was safe to send young women to college, stating, "There was no great difference in the girls' attitudes. The average co-ed apparently would rather mix with stag lines than picket lines."

But not only that. He also emphasized that the young women lost none of their feminine habits at college. A United Press reporter paraphrased his words of assurance:

He found that in general college did little to upset or change a co-ed's home training but that she might learn to apply her makeup better, dress better and talk better. "But she won't talk about Communism -- college offers too many other diversions."

In other words, families could rest assured that their daughters would still be good homemakers upon their return. Not godless communists!]]> Human Subjects, Psychology, Gender, 1900-1949, United States, 2011-08-16T02:21:13+00:00 If a pregnant woman eats garlic, does it change the smell of her amniotic fluid? - 1995 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/smelling_amniotic_fluid http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/smelling_amniotic_fluid
Photo by lowjumpingfrogIn a 1995 study led by Julie Mennella of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a panel of adults was given two clear substances to smell. The substances were presented to them in plastic squeeze bottles, at room temperature. The panelists were asked to state which of the substances smelled more strongly of garlic.

What the panelists didn't know is that the substances they were sniffing was amniotic fluid, taken from ten pregnant women who had undergone routine amniocentesis. Five of these women had been given garlic pills to swallow shortly before the procedure, while the other five had been given placebo capsules. The experiment was an effort to determine the extent to which the garlic would alter the odor of the amniotic fluid.

The larger purpose behind all this was to investigate the sensory environment fetuses are exposed to in utero — the theory being that whatever food the mother eats ends up being sampled by the fetus as well. The researchers suspected that adult food preferences are strongly influenced by the tastes people are exposed to in their mother's womb. Therefore, the experiment was designed to demonstrate that strongly flavored foods definitely can alter the smell of the amniotic fluid, and will therefore be experienced by the fetus. The authors of the study explained:

Because the normal fetus swallows significant amounts of amniotic fluid during the latter stages of gestation and has open airway passages which are bathed in amniotic fluid, the fetus may also be exposed to a variety of chemosensory experiments in utero. The environment in which the fetus lives, the amnion, can indeed be odorous... In the present study, we describe the first experimental evidence in humans that volatiles from the pregnant woman's diet are transmitted to amniotic fluid.

The result: the panelists quite easily identified the garlicky amniotic fluid. So if you love garlic, it could be because your mother ate a lot of it while pregnant with you.]]> Human Subjects, Sensation, Smell, Taste, 1980-1999, United States, Nutrition and Food, 2011-08-11T14:00:39+00:00 Dr. Chamberlain’s Glass Brain, 1936 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/chamberlains_glass_brain http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/chamberlains_glass_brain
A brief description in the journal Epilepsia explained that the contraption was actually designed to illustrate "the physio-dynamics and hydraulics of the craniovertebral cavity". The journal further noted, "A vascular and cerebrospinal fluid circulation had been constructed within the model, so as to duplicate the volume and pressure changes encountered in the human structure."

The device itself consisted of a glass sphere that represented the skull. The brain inside the "skull" was a water filled bladder. The capillaries were represented by a filter through which imitation blood flowed.

Chamberlain subsequently showed his glass brain at other medical conventions and was always, as journalists noted, the "center of attraction".


Dr. Chamberlain shows off his glass brain

]]> Medical Research, Physiology, Brain, 1900-1949, United States, 2011-08-10T04:13:13+00:00 Squeezing Testicles Causes Finger Shrinkage, 1935 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/squeezing_testicles_shrinking_fingers http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/squeezing_testicles_shrinking_fingers
E.A. CarmichaelThe scene: London, 1935. A man in his mid-twenties sits in a comfortable chair in the middle of a hospital room. His eyes are tightly closed. His elbows are supported by the armrests. Several fingers of his right hand are enclosed in glass devices resembling test tubes, connected by plastic tubing to a machine. An older man wearing a white lab coat creeps up behind him, careful not to make any noise. The older man walks around in front of the sitting man, looks closely at him to determine that his eyes are shut, then reaches down between the other man's legs and grabs and roughly squeezes the testicles. The younger man gasps.

The above experiment, conducted by the brain specialist Edward Carmichael, was designed to test the reaction of the sympathetic nervous system to sudden shocks. Carmichael hypothesized that such shocks would trigger a vasomotor response. That is, the sympathetic system, which controls the body's "fight or flight response," would rapidly constrict blood vessels.

Carmichael measured the vasomotor response by means of a device that could sense minute changes in the width of fingers — since constricting blood vessels would reduce blood flow to the digits causing them to shrink slightly. This device consisted of a glass container placed around the fingers, connected to a machine that could detect subtle variations in air volume.

Carmichael had his subjects sit in a room in which absolute silence was maintained. The subjects had to keep their eyes tightly closed. Carmichael then exposed them to a series of shocks, all the while recording the expansion and contraction of their fingers.

The shocks took a variety of forms. He produced sudden noises, such as screaming or dropping a plank of wood on the floor. He pinched the subjects on the arm and poked them with pins. He dropped pieces of ice down their back. And he also applied sudden pressure to their testicles.

Carmichael conducted his tests on two groups of subjects — a control group consisting of post-graduate students who had volunteered to participate in the study, as well as an experimental group, consisting of patients from London's National Hospital suffering from various forms of brain damage, specifically damage that had resulted in hemiplegia (paralysis of one side of their body).

Carmichael found that the shocks reliably caused the finger volume of the post-graduate students to shrink. The shrinkage typically began two or three seconds after the shock, reaching a state of maximum shrinkage six to twelve seconds later.

The brain-damaged patients displayed a similar response — except for those whose brain injuries included damage to the sympathetic nervous system. They didn't display the response, leading Carmichael to conclude that, "diminution in digital volume was dependent upon the integrity of the post-ganglionic sympathetic nerve-fibres."


Chart showing the response of a patient with damage to his cauda equina to sudden compression of one of his testicles

Carmichael found that other forms of stimuli could also cause fingers to shrink. For instance, threatening to punch the subjects in the face produced the response, as did having the subjects perform deep-breathing exercises or asking them to solve math problems.

This was not the first time Carmichael employed the technique of testicular compression during an experiment. In 1933, he had participated in a study that involved stacking weights on testicles (perhaps his own), in order to investigate the physiology of testicular pain.]]> Human Subjects, Physiology, Brain, 1900-1949, United Kingdom, Pain, 2011-08-09T15:11:51+00:00 The Man Who Tried to Sell Himself to Science, 1936 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/man_who_offered_to_sell_himself_to_science http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/man_who_offered_to_sell_himself_to_science
He announced his offer in November 1936 through the local press:
If some doctor or group of doctors would let me borrow enough to pay my bills and set me on my feet, I would give myself as security. If I failed to pay it back at a time decided, they could have me to experiment on any way they wished. They might discover something worth many times the sum they let me have.


William Bird posing with his family

Later he further elaborated on his offer, noting that it would be all right with him if he didn't survive the experimentation process:

If I could borrow $2500 for three years, I would pay up all my bills and buy, free and clear, a little place for my family to live. Then, if I didn't pay it back and the experimenting killed me, it would be all right by me. No one could kick my children out, if I bought the home for them first.

The media picked up on his unusual offer and broadcast it nationwide. Reporters noted that he was a prime physical specimen — six feet tall, 175 pounds, and a sturdy workman of good habits. In other words, excellent guinea pig material.

An anonymous Texan took sympathy on Bird and sent him $10. However, the scientific community wasn't tempted. No doctors took him up on his offer.

Although Bird didn't end up being dissected in a laboratory, the story nevertheless had a happy ending. Within days of making his appeal, Bird was given a job on a construction project. He said, "I don't know who was responsible for giving me work, but I sure appreciate it." But he also noted that, despite having a job, his offer still stood should some doctor ever want to take him up on it.


Bird at his new construction job
]]> Human Subjects, Medical Research, 1900-1949, United States, 2011-08-08T02:01:41+00:00 Transforming Dog Feces, Girl Scout Cookies, & Cockroaches into Graphene, 2011 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/transforming_dog_feces_and_girl_scout_cookies_into_graphene http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/transforming_dog_feces_and_girl_scout_cookies_into_graphene
However, in 2011 researchers in the Rice University lab of James Tour demonstrated it was possible to grow graphene relatively inexpensively from a variety of cheap carbon sources. Their process involved placing a carbon-based substance on a thin piece of copper foil in a furnace at a temperature of 1050 degrees celsius and baking it for 15 minutes. The graphene formed on the bottom side of the foil. They demonstrated their process by creating graphene from chocolate, grass, plastic, girl-scout cookies, cockroaches, and dog feces.


A cockroach leg about to be transformed into graphene

According to Science Daily:
The cookie gambit started on a dare when Tour mentioned at a meeting that his lab had produced graphene from table sugar.
"I said we could grow it from any carbon source -- for example, a Girl Scout cookie, because Girl Scout Cookies were being served at the time," Tour recalled. "So one of the people in the room said, 'Yes, please do it. ... Let's see that happen.'"

The Girl Scout cookies were provided by a local Troop from Houston, Texas. They were shortbread flavor. The dog feces were provided by a miniature dachsund belonging to the lab manager, Dustin James.

Tour noted that he expected the cost of graphene to drop sharply in the future.

Though Tour didn't mention this, presumably his process could be used to create graphene not only from girl scout cookies, but also from girl scouts.]]> Chemistry, 2000s, United States, 2011-08-06T23:15:08+00:00 Man builds working nuclear reactor in his kitchen, 2011 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/homemade_nuclear_reactor http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/homemade_nuclear_reactor Richard's Reactor. He told reporters, "I thought I would do an experiment to see if it really works to build a nuclear reactor." He also reassured journalists that he was constantly monitoring the experiment with a Geiger counter and could have stopped the reaction if it had run out of control.

Handl contacted Sweden's radiation authority to see if what he was doing was legal. They responded by sending the police to raid his apartment on July 20. The authorities later released him after determining radiation levels in his home were safe. Links: msnbc, BBC.


Photo taken by Richard Handl showing the explosive result of combining Americium, Radium and Beryllium in a 96% sulphuric-acid solution on top of his stove.
]]> Amateurs, Chemistry, Physics, Nuclear Physics, Sweden, 2011-08-04T14:07:18+00:00 Gua, the chimpanzee raised alongside a human infant, 1931 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/ape_and_child http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/ape_and_child
To answer this question, in 1931 Kellogg brought a seven-month-old female chimpanzee named Gua into his home. He and his wife then proceeded to raise her as if she were human, treating her exactly the same as they treated their ten-month-old son Donald.

Donald and Gua played together. They were fed together. And the Kelloggs subjected them both to regular tests to track their development. One such test was the suspended cookie test, in which the Kelloggs timed how long it took their children to reach a cookie suspended by a string in the middle of the room.

Gua regularly performed better on such tests than Donald, but in terms of language acquisition she was a disappointment. Despite the Kelloggs's repeated efforts, the ability to speak eluded her. Disturbingly, it also seemed to be eluding Donald. Nine months into the experiment, his language skills weren't much better than Gua's. When he one day indicated he was hungry by imitating Gua's "food bark," the Kelloggs decided the experiment had gone far enough. Donald evidently needed some playmates of his own species. So on March 28, 1932 they shipped Gua back to the primate center. She died a year-and-a-half later of fever.

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]]> Animals, Primates (non-human), Human Subjects, Children, Psychology, Animal Behavior, 1900-1949, United States, 2011-08-03T20:22:32+00:00 Heartbeat of prisoner facing firing squad recorded, 1938 http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/heartbeat_at_death http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/heartbeat_at_death
Deering had volunteered to participate in an experiment, the first of its kind, to have his heartbeat recorded as he was shot through the chest by a firing squad. The prison physician, Dr. Stephen Besley, figured that since Deering was being executed anyway, science might as well benefit from the event. Perhaps some valuable information about the effect of fear on the heart could be learned.


The electrocardiogram immediately disclosed that, despite Deering's calm exterior, his heart was beating like a jackhammer at 120 beats per minute. The sheriff gave the order to fire, and Deering's heartbeat raced up to 180 beats per minute. Then four bullets ripped into his chest, knocking him back in his chair. One bullet bore directly into the right side of his heart. For four seconds his heart spasmed. A moment later it spasmed again. Then the rhythm gradually declined until, 15.4 seconds after the first shot, Deering's heart stopped.

The next day Dr. Besley offered the press a eulogy of sorts for Deering: "He put on a good front. The electrocardiograph film shows his bold demeanor hid the actual emotions pounding within him. He was scared to death."


John Deering

]]> Death, Physiology, 1900-1949, United States, 2011-08-02T19:43:22+00:00 Edward Carmichael (1896-1978), The Doctor Who Stacked Weights on His Testicles http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/sensitive_testes http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/pl/sensitive_testes

Herbert Henry Woollard
E.A. Carmichael

Their motive for this self-experiment was to better understand referred pain — the mysterious phenomenon in which injury to an internal organ causes pain to be felt elsewhere in the body. For instance, a heart attack may cause the sensation of pain in the arm. The two doctors noted that, of all the internal organs, the testicles were the most "accessible to investigation" and therefore seemed ideal for a study of referred pain.

During the experiment, the subject lay spread-eagled on a table, exposing his genitals. His colleague stooped over him and gripped the other man's scrotal sac, drawing it forward and gently cradling it in his hand. He then rested a scale pan on a single testis, and carefully piled weights onto the pan, recording the reaction of the subject with each increase of weight.


One of Woollard and Carmichael's charts of testicular pain

Their results, which appeared in the journal Brain, were rather spare on colorful details. They described the agony of the victim only in dry, clinical details. For instance, they reported that 300 grams of weight produced slight discomfort in the right groin, while 650 grams caused severe pain on the right side of the body. However, they did confirm that injury to the testicles does cause pain to be referred throughout the body. For instance, as the weight on the testicle increased to over two pounds, the subject reported pain "of a sickening character" not only in his groin but also spreading across his back.

Woollard and Carmichael conducted a number of variations of the experiment, in which they numbed nerves leading to the testes in order to determine how this would alter the sensation. This produced the interesting finding that, even though they eventually numbed what they believed to be every nerve leading to the testes, they couldn't entirely abolish the pain of compression. The testes are highly sensitive organs!

Their results remain the definitive word on this subject since no other scientists have ever repeated the experiment.]]> Physiology, 1900-1949, United Kingdom, Self-Experiments, Pain, 2011-08-01T15:19:30+00:00