L'auto-expérimentation athlétique du docteur Fernand Lagrange (1880-1900).

This article examines the efforts of Dr. Fernand Lagrange to establish the study of the physiology of exercise on a scientific basis. As a sports enthusiast and physician, Lagrande was inspired by the efforts of Claude Bernard and Étienne-Jules Marey to use his own body as a source of experimentation and methodical observation. Lagrande's self-experimentation pioneered the physiology of exercise, but his primary goal was to improve human health by demonstrating the benefits that could be derived from regular physical exercise. His observations of other human subjects, be they farmers, schoolchildren, students, or sportsmen, were always driven by the "moral motivation" for his new science to realize a more perfect knowledge of its object.

Cet article a pour but de dévoiler l'origine des travaux de Fernand Lagrange et la méthodologie qu'il a mise en place, à une époque où la physiologie des exercices corporels n'en était qu'à ses balbutiements. Il en ressort que ce docteur sportsman a éprouvé personnellement les choses avant de les éclairer scientifiquement. Dans la veine impulsée par Claude Bernard ou Étienne-Jules Marey, il a pratiqué ce que l'on est en droit d'appeler une auto-expérimentation athlétique. Précurseur incontestable et incontesté de la physiologie des exercices du corps, son objectif premier fut d'améliorer la santé de l'être humain en démontrant tous les bénéfices que ce dernier pouvait tirer d'une pratique physique régulière. Il a toujours porté un regard sur les autres, qu'ils soient paysans, écoliers, étudiants ou sportifs, avec une « motivation morale ¼, et ce en vue de fonder son intervention avec une parfaite connaissance de son objet.

Self-Experiments with Psychoactive Substances: A Historical Perspective.

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the rich tradition of self-experiments (SEs) with psychoactive substances carried out by scientists and therapists for more than a century. Scientifically inspired controlled SEs dominated until the end of the twentieth century, when ethical requirements minimized controlled SEs and "wild" SEs expanded particularly with the emergence of new psychoactive substances. The review focuses on laughing gas (nitrous oxide), cannabis, cocaine, hallucinogens, entactogens, and dissociative hallucinogens. This is due to the fact that substances that induce "complex" effects such as alteration of space/time experience, ego dissolution, and increased feelings and insights (e.g., hallucinogens, entactogens) represent by far the majority of SEs, whereas SEs with substances inducing "simple" effects such as euphoria, anxiolysis, dissociation, or emotional blunting (e.g., cocaine, opioids) are much rarer or even absent (e.g., benzodiazepines). Complex drug effects are much harder to describe, thus allowing SEs to fulfill a more important function.SEs with psychoactive drugs appeared to emerge in the mid-eighteenth century, which triggered a long-standing tradition throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century. SEs have been de facto performed for a variety of reasons, ranging from establishing scientific knowledge and gaining philosophical insights to compensating for personal deficits. Self-experimenters can be divided into two general types. Besides their scientific intentions, "exploratory" self-experimenters intend to expand awareness and insight, whereas "compensatory" self-experimenters might aim for coping with psychiatric symptoms or personality deficits. Scientific limitations of SEs are obvious when compared to double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trials. Whereas the former might lead to more "realistic" detailed description of subjective effects, the latter lead to more solid results in respect to objectively measurable "average" effects. Possible adverse effects of SEs were identified that resulted in loss of scientific objectivity and decreased control over substance use and addiction, development of isolation, problematic group dynamics, and "social autism."

"They Sweat for Science": The Harvard Fatigue Laboratory and Self-Experimentation in American Exercise Physiology.

In many scientific fields, the practice of self-experimentation waned over the course of the twentieth century. For exercise physiologists working today, however, the practice of self-experimentation is alive and well. This paper considers the role of the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory and its scientific director, D. Bruce Dill, in legitimizing the practice of self-experimentation in exercise physiology. Descriptions of self-experimentation are drawn from papers published by members of the Harvard Fatigue Lab. Attention is paid to the ethical and practical justifications for self-experimentation in both the lab and the field. Born out of the practical, immediate demands of fatigue protocols, self-experimentation performed the long-term, epistemological function of uniting physiological data across time and space, enabling researchers to contribute to a general human biology program.

Personal knowledge and study participation.

Scientists in earlier times considered personal research participation an essential component of their work.Exposing themselves to untested interventions was seen as the most ethical way to gauge the human response to those interventions. The practice was also educational, for it generated useful information that helped researchers plan subsequent human studies.Self-experimentation was eventually replaced by more comprehensive ethical codes governing human research.But it is time to bring back the practice of self-experimentation, albeit in modified form. Through serving as a study subject, investigators and other research professionals can obtain valuable information about their work.

The persistence of the subjective in neuropsychopharmacology: observations of contemporary hallucinogen research.

The elimination of subjectivity through brain research and the replacement of so-called "folk psychology" by a neuroscientifically enlightened worldview and self-conception has been both hoped for and feared. But this cultural revolution is still pending. Based on nine months of fieldwork on the revival of hallucinogen research since the "Decade of the Brain," this paper examines how subjective experience appears as epistemic object and practical problem in a psychopharmacological laboratory. In the quest for neural correlates of (drug-induced altered states of) consciousness, introspective accounts of test subjects play a crucial role in neuroimaging studies. Firsthand knowledge of the drugs' flamboyant effects provides researchers with a personal knowledge not communicated in scientific publications, but key to the conduct of their experiments. In many cases, the "psychedelic experience" draws scientists into the field and continues to inspire their self-image and way of life. By exploring these domains the paper points to a persistence of the subjective in contemporary neuropsychopharmacology.

[Werner Forssmann: "the typical man before his time!" - self-experiment shows feasibility of cardiac catheterization]. / Werner Forssmann: "The typical man before his time!" - Erste Herzkatheterisierung im Selbstversuch.

Going trough the literature on the history of cardiac catheterization, it is obvious that some authors tend to imprecise reporting or omitting important facts; thus, the truth has been misrepresented deceiving conception. This also applies to Werner Forssmann;s experiments that he conducted on himself that yielded centuries later in awarding him with the Nobel Prize along with the American physicians André Frédéric Cournand and Dickinson Woodruff Richards. With the Nobel Prize outstanding achievements in science were honoured that had opened a new chapter in the history of medicine: diagnostics in cardiology with the aid of a cardiac catheter. Since Forssmann}s article on this experiment gave rise to controversies right from being published, his nomination for the Nobel Prize caused a dispute among German physicians as opposed to his co-nominees; hence, he had to face severe hostility and adverseness. In this review less known details are to be disclosed that resulted in Forssmann;s devastating suicide as well as facets of the biography of a physician who was accused of fraud and charlatanism. This was revoked centuries after an American cardiologist appreciated him as "the typical man before his time".

[Physicians who experimented on themselves: risk-taking among physicians and researchers].

Throughout history, we can find physicians and scientists who made important discoveries through self-experimentation or by risk-taking. Some were consciously exposed to plagues, some swallowed germs or chemicals and some put themselves in extreme physiological situations. Today, it seems that these stories are completely unnecessary: ethics, together with concrete controlled studies guidelines, suffice to avoid self-experimentations.

[The first to go--physicians who experimented on themselves]. / De gikk først--leger som eksperimenterte på seg selv.

Since ancient times, there have been rules for experiments on humans. Some have claimed that if one thinks an experiment might involve danger, it should first be tried out on oneself. There are, in fact, numerous examples of doctors who have undergone daring experiments on themselves. Among them are Max von Pettenkofer, who drank cholera bacteria, Werner Forssmann who catheterized his own heart, John Paul Stapp, who sat in a rocket sled at almost the speed of sound, and then made an abrupt stop. Doctors from Walter Reed's research team infected themselves with yellow fever, Erik Jacobsen demonstrated the effect of antabuse and alcohol on himself, Barry J. Marshall drank helicobacter pylori bacteria, Klaus Hansen drank heavy water, and Ole Jakob Malm transplanted foreign tissue onto his own skin in order to discern among different tissue types. This article describes these various experiments, why they were done, and their consequences. The perspective of ethics in such experimental research is briefly discussed.

Daniel Alcides Carrion (1857-1885) and a history of medical martyrdom.

Daniel Carrion, a sixth-year medical student, died while investigating the effects of self-inoculation of the causative organism of Oroya Fever and Bartonellosis and thereby contributed to understanding of the disease before the organisms had been identified.

Urology and the Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, first awarded in 1901, was established by Alfred Nobel to acknowledge "those who during the preceding year had conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." Two urologists have achieved this daunting task: Werner Theodore Otto Forssmann (1956) and Charles Brenton Huggins (1966). This article reflects the lives and accomplishments of these men as an inspiration to those who have likewise dedicated themselves to the field of urology.

[Human bartonellosis: before and after Daniel Alcides Carrion]. / Bartonelosis humana: antes y después de Daniel Alcides Carrión.

This is a review of bibliographic aspects associated to the knowledge about human bartonelosis before and after the death of Daniel Alcides Carrion. Emphasis is placed on stimulus in the development of medical research in Peru by the self-inoculation and subsequent death of Carrion especially in relation to human bartonellosis, conducted by Peruvian researchers and others around the world. The review includes the basic area of knowledge about the bacteria that causes the illness, the host response to infection as well as the biphasic behavior of the disease. The revised bibliography includes contributions to the knowledge of the disease in the last 100 years, now known with the eponym "Carrion's disease".