During his medical training at the University of Berlin in the 1920's, Werner Forssman encountered a sketch in a physiology textbook of physicians passing a tube through the jugular vein of a horse and into the horse's heart in order to record changes in pressure in the heart. He became convinced that the procedure would work on a human. He cajoled a nurse into being his subject, but once he strapped her to the operating table, he opted to perform the procedure on himself while the nurse acted as his captive witness. He published his results in 1927, and the procedure revolutionised our understanding of cardiac anatomy and physiology, ultimately earning a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1956.
Some of the earliest self-experimentation in orthopedics occurred in the investigation of osteomyelitis. In the late 1800’s, osteomyelitis was a common and sometimes deadly problem. A Scottish…
