From urine tasting to self-infecting with stomach bugs – a brief guide to the most daring medical self-experiments

By Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

Science presenter and journalist Dr Michael Mosley was well known not only for his expertise, energy and passion as a broadcaster but also for trialling experiments on himself. From swallowing tapeworm eggs to having areas of his brain switched off, Mosley joined other medical pioneers who weren’t afraid to make use of their own bodies in the quest to learn more about them.

The “father of medicine”, Hippocrates – as well as other important figures from Chinese, Indian, Egyptian and Arabic history –…

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