Claude Barlow: A History of Self-Experimentation

Abstract

Medical research has a long history of investigators who used themselves as experimental subjects in their efforts to solve infectious disease mysteries. These intrepid investigators voluntarily exposed themselves to infectious agents for reasons of expediency as well as ethics and watched themselves while disease developed. The risks of this research could be great. Claude H. Barlow, a missionary surgeon and parasitologist of the early 20th century, used this experimental technique on many occasions during a long career in helminthology. The author, a retired pediatric gastroenterologist and Dr. Barlow's granddaughter, presents a modern look at his research and results.