Photo: For the first time in the world in 1998, professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading (UK) Kevin Warwick implanted a computer chip into his hand. I almost lost my hand.
The thirst for knowledge forces scientists to carry out deadly experiments on themselves
Six volunteers live in a cramped chamber simulating a living compartment of a spacecraft for almost a month - they simulate a flight to Mars at the Moscow Institute of Medical and Biological Problems. The biochemist, engineer and doctor suffer along with the "cosmonauts". That is, people who, according to their status, are generally supposed to be on the other side of the battered hatch, observe from the side. And not to be experimental. But they believe: you need to experience on your own skin what can happen to a person during a long space flight.
There are many more heroic examples in the history of science.
WILL HAVE TO POISON
In 1982, Australian scientists Robin Warren and Barry Marshall discovered Helicobacter pylori bacteria on the mucous membrane of the human stomach. And it was suggested that it was she, and not stress or spicy food, that becomes the main cause of gastritis and stomach ulcers. But colleagues scoffed at the scientists. Then Marshal, angry, drank a broth with bacteria from a test tube. And he quickly fell ill with gastritis, which he demonstrated to unbelievers. As a result, the scientists' discovery was recognized. And in 2005 they received the Nobel Prize.
YOUR BRAINS ARE NOT SORRY
Recently, scientists from the New York Medical School and the University of Tokyo announced that they will provide their brains for experiments. Because they don't want to put strangers at risk. And they are going to stuff their own convolutions with nanowires. To track the behavior of individual nerve cells from within.
Although wires are 100 times thinner than human hair, there will be a lot of them. These platinum veins will penetrate the capillaries, reaching almost every neuron. And they will pick up weak electrical impulses. And they will allow you to create an extremely detailed "activity map" of any part of the brain.
With the help of the "hair" in the head, scientists hope to finally understand the mechanisms of thinking. And they do not exclude that they will be able to read other people's thoughts.
PLAGUE BLOOD ON THE WOUND
“The main goal of the experiment, which he put on himself, was to show that the senseless fear of the plague, which led to the paralysis of all economic life, is unfounded, since not everyone fell ill, even when a severe epidemic was raging,” wrote the Austrian in his book “Dramatic Medicine” doctor Hugo Glyazer. - Clot took some bacterial flora from the shirt of the plague patient, stained with dried blood, and inoculated in the left forearm, right side of the groin, in all six places. Small wounds were bandaged with a bandage dipped in the blood of a plague patient. But this did not seem to him enough. He cut his skin, applied a certain amount of pus from the carbuncle of the plague patient to this place, and bandaged the wound with the patient's blood. Then he put on the clothes of a plague patient, and when he died, he lay down in his unmade bed. In short, he did everything to infect himself, but he failed. This is how Glaser describes an experiment carried out by the English physician Antoine Clot in 1802 in Egypt.
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LET'S SEE IF I'M DIE OF RABIES
Louis Pasteur created the rabies vaccine. But for some time they were afraid to use it - especially in those cases when they did not know for sure whether there was a rabid dog that bit a person. They feared that if the animal was healthy, the vaccine would be fatal.
Pasteur wanted to personally prove the harmlessness of his vaccine by injecting himself. But at the last moment he got cold feet. Then his colleague, doctor Emmerich Ulman, agreed to a dangerous experiment. “Let's see if I die of rabies or not,” he said calmly, rolling up his shirt. Ulman survived. And it helped spread the Pasteur vaccine.
65 DAYS AT SEA - NO FOOD AND WATER
French physician Alain Bombard in 1952 crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a rubber boat without food and fresh water in 65 days. Ate plankton and raw fish. Instead of water, he drank the juice squeezed from the fish. He lost 25 kilograms, but survived.
Why did Bombar torture himself like that? I wanted to understand why most shipwreck victims who find themselves at sea die in the first three days. Indeed, according to medical observations, people can live from 4 to 6 weeks without food, and 4 to 5 days without water. And he came to the conclusion: most of the victims could have survived if not for their despair and fear. And not consuming salt water. The feat and advice of Bombar later helped thousands of people.
DEADLY REJUVENATION
The founder of Russian transfusiology, Alexander Bogdanov, believed that the blood transfusion procedure rejuvenates the human body and can heal seriously ill patients. From 1926 to 1928, he made himself 11 times exchange blood transfusions and each time he said that he felt great.
For the 12th time, tragedy occurred. Bogdanov "exchanged" blood with a student with tuberculosis. The medic hoped to transfer his immunity to him. And, apparently, he did. As a result, the student survived, and the experimenter himself died.
Now we can assume that Bogdanov's death was brought about by the mismatch of blood rhesus. Then they did not know about Rh factors.
WHO ELSE WAS AN EXPERIMENTAL RABBIT
Nobel laureate Pierre Curie (1859 - 1906), while studying radiation, irradiated his hand for 10 hours. As a result, an ulcer appeared and with it a new field of medicine called radiotherapy. Pierre himself died from being run over by a horse.
The French physician Nicolaus Minovizi, in order to describe the state that occurs when suffocating, in 1905 he hung himself on a rope and asked his assistants to note the changes in his state using a stopwatch.
To develop new diagnostic techniques, the German surgeon Werner Forsman in 1929 inserted a catheter into his heart cavity through a vein. And for this in 1956 he received the Nobel Prize.
The Swedish chemist Karl Scheele, having discovered hydrocyanic acid in 1782, decided to taste it and died.
In 1933, Geneva physician and zoologist Jacques Ponto tested a serum he had created against the venom of a viper, allowing three snakes to bite him. Survived.
Russian scientist Fedor Talyzin, in order to study the symptoms and course of the disease with bovine tapeworm, in the 1940s, swallowed two worm larvae. Four months later, two worms with a total length of 9 meters 80 centimeters lived in his intestines.
Dr. William Stark (1740 - 1770) from London experienced a variety of diets. He sat on bread and water, then only on meat. As a result, he undermined his health and died at the age of 29, when he tried to eat only chester cheese.
And the doctor Shabsai Moshkovsky, in order to test his hypothesis about the causes of beriberi disease (vitamin deficiency, which develops with a lack of vitamin B1), ate rice alone for almost a year. His idea was confirmed: he fell ill with beriberi. But he died much later, at the age of 87.