Experiment: A child is deliberately infected with the deadly smallpox disease without his parents' informed consent. Result: The world's first vaccine.
Experiment: A slave woman is forced to undergo more than thirty operations without anesthesia. Result: The beginnings of modern gynecology.
Experiment: From 1946 to 1953, seventy-four boys are fed oatmeal laced with radioactive iron and calcium. Result: A better understanding of the effects of radioactivity on the human body.
Experimental incidents such as these paved the way for crucial medical discoveries and lifesaving cures and procedures. But they also violated the rights of their subjects, many of whom did not give their consent to the experiments. The subjects suffered excruciating pain and humiliation. Some even died as a result of the procedures. Even in the twenty-first century — despite laws, regulations, and ethical conventions — the tension between medical experimentation and patient rights continues.
How do doctors balance the need to test new medicines and procedures with their ethical and moral duty to protect the rights of human subjects? What price has been paid for medical knowledge? Can we learn from the broken oaths of the past?
Take a harrowing journey through some of history's greatest medical advances — and its most horrifying medical atrocities. You'll read about orphans injected with lethal tuberculosis and concentration camp inmates tortured by Nazi doctors. You’ll also learn about radiation experimentation and present-day clinical trials that prove fatal. Through these stories, explore the human suffering that has gone hand in hand with medical advancement.
