Who Goes First?: The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine

by Lawrence K. Altman

Lawrence Altman has authored the only complete history of the controversial and understudied practice of self-experimentation. In telling the stories of pioneering researchers, Altman offers a history of many of the most important medical advancements in recent years as well as centuries past―from anesthesia to yellow fever to heart disease. With a new preface, he brings readers up to date and continues his discussion of the ethics and controversy that continue to surround a practice that benefits millions but is understood by few.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Medicine, History, Health

460 pages, Paperback

First published June 12, 1987

Reviews

[Max]

This guy LOVES men who inject themselves with diseases on purpose or otherwise destroy their bodies on purpose!!! Which like same but Probably for different reasons ;-) an utter celebration of death loving men. My fav is when they poison themselves with something tons of people already have, exclusively because they had such high levels of elitism toxicity they found affected people’s descriptions of what happened to them pointless . honestly to the extent they actually are just being little heroic medicine freaks wrecking their own bodies for sport, cool I guess! Have at it! But it sounds like an awful lot of them used their self experiments as a recruiting tool, as a justification for inviting others into their often pointlessly dangerous experiments, and falsely conflated the experience of self experimenting w/ having a medical condition you did NOT give yourself on purpose. He didn’t mention it almost at all but it’s hard to believe self experimenters don’t overlap significantly with those who took violent advantage of anyone they could get their hands on as subjects. It’s weird to read this guy recount as uncomplicated heroism the way modern medicine is built on a massive pile of corpses and human suffering

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a lot of potential, but a dry follow-through. These are stories about amazing people who's research has lead to breakthroughs in medicine that has saved millions of lives. Though sadly, it's not a very compelling read.

On a side note, I know you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but come on! This is so ugly! How can you take book of such crazy stories and reduce it to primary colors and symmetrical shapes? If this ever runs as a second edition, I hope they can fix the cover.

[Alan Clark · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

Fairly interesting but rather dry, with only a few amusing anecdotes, and ultimately rather repetitive: Doctor injects himself with something, suffers some ill effects but gets better (or dies).

For a more entertaining and varied read try "The Medical Detectives" (two volumes) by Berton Roueche.

[Andrew Degruccio · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read though a bit boring. The author's attempt to prove his hypothesis clearly creates a rather one-sided history and narrative. He spends very little time at the conclusion of the book presenting potential downsides of self-experimentation. He completely negates the experimental bias as influential in results reporting, indicating that good researches know how to manage this bias. Excuse me, but you must not understand bias. The problem with bias is that you rarely can identify that it is affecting the results and your interpretations. Potential biases must be removed for critical scientific data to be significant. Hence, outside of initial experimental design, self-experimentation in medicine has little value currently.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating history of the controversial and understudied practice of self-experimentation. Many of the most important medical advancements in the past resulted from researchers experimenting on themselves as it was and often still is the only viable method of proof to overturn orthodoxy.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many interesting studies, here, and so many in my lifetime. Amazing what medicine has learned in the last 50-70 years, and amazing doctors who experimented on themselves.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, accessible collection of stories from modern medicine's history when doctors experimented upon themselves.

Admittedly, it's not the kind of book you pick up just for kicks, and I first read it for a History of Science class, but I LOVED it. You'll be amazed how many things from our modern medicine began with really dangerous experiments that doctors first did upon themselves (typically, because they felt the question was important enough to taking the risk, but they didn't want to put other people at such high risks, and so chose to do it themselves.) Everything from nutrition to yellow fever, to seat belts to leukemeia and cancer, an then some.

Some stories make you wonder about the sanity of those docs, but it's eye-opening, and fascinating. And the author, Dr. Lawrence, is a guy who writes for the New York Times, and he knows how to write for an audience who has little or no background in medicine.

A while back, my family had its own book-reading group, and I had them read this when it was my turn to pick, and almost all of them really enjoyed it, too.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm interested in what I consider "real-life mad scientists" and this book was the perfect way to expand my knowledge on the topic. Truly some wild stories in here (Werner Forssmann, I am most certainly looking at you).

As a layperson, I was able to easily understand this whole book. Dr. Altman's time as a journalist really shines through in the way he is able to explain medical topics to the everyman.

There is a wide variety of topics here: from the first cardiac catheterization, to people purposefully giving themselves diseases despite having no cure at hand, to a man accidently tripping on LSD, to ophthalmologists putting cocaine on their eyes, etc.

Very well sourced, including snippets and summaries of direct interviews Altman was able to have with some of these doctors, and additional interesting tidbits in the Notes.

[Elizabeth]

As seen on Scientific American's web site.

Also, as mentioned in the Race and Research Symposium sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute.

[Will Spiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scholarly in its approach (and footnoting) but highly readable - to his credit, Altman isn't afraid to strike out on a tangent if it involves a good anecdote. Surprising, fascinating, and - dare I even say it? - inspiring?

[Wendy]

I'm only partway through the book & it is very interesting but also disturbing--I was cringing reading some of the things that MDs & scientists have inflicted upon themselves...

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll be honest: I didn't read the whole thing. Parts of it get LONG: BUT the rest of it has fascinating stories of Doctors, and great history!

[David Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book on medical self-experimentation, from the early to modern days of medicine. You simply won't believe what some doctors have done to themselves, sometimes with fatal consequences.