MDs are their best guinea pigs…“Do unto yourself before doing unto others”

16th century – Santorio Santorio (Padua, Italy) weighed himself (and his food and drink) daily for 30 years, identifying ‘insensible perspiration’

1929 – Dr. Werner Fossmannn inserted a thin tube into a vein in his arm and slid it into his heart (shared 1956 Nobel prize)-inspires modern era of cardiology)

1939 - Gerhard Domagk (1939 Nobel prize) discovers sulfa drugs and later injects himself with sterilized extracts of human cancers in search of cancer vaccines

Lawrence K Altman, MD, Who Goes First? The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine. NY Times article, 2006.

Myth dispelled: after pledging to be a guinea pig researching the mosquito/yellow fever connection, Walter Reed reniged. One team member died another barely survived.