Historys Weirdest Experiments

The last two centuries have been a period of incredible advancement for our species. This period, barely a footnote in our grand chronicle, has seen more technological progress than the rest of human history combined. The keystone of this progress has been the experiment; a clever sort has an idea, tries it out, and if they are lucky, humanity ratchets forward by another notch.

Yet, the course of scientific progress has not always been a smooth one. For every successful experiment, many more fail, their hypotheses being found wanting, and their promises remaining unfulfilled. This is the natural order of things – the trial and error that is the lifeblood of science; failure is but a steppingstone across the river of progress.

However, there is another curious category of experiment; the ones that make you scratch your head and ponder… why? The ones with a premise so bizarre, a goal so abstract, and a methodology so macabre that they can only be described as weird, regardless of whether or not they were actually successful.

Today we shall be diving straight into the deep end of this bizarre pool and immersing ourselves among five of history’s most bizarre experiments, so… let’s begin!

Elephants on Acid

Where better to start on our endeavour into science’s eyebrow raising excesses than that time that scientists laced an elephant with psychotropic drugs. This study, which occurred in 1962 and was undertaken by researchers from the University of Oklahoma, started with a seemingly well-intentioned objective; to understand a behavioural anomaly in elephants known as ‘musth,’ a period of heightened aggression and erratic behaviour during their mating season.

The protagonists of this peculiar plot were a 14-year-old Indian elephant named Tusko, and a team of scientists led by one Dr Louis West. They began by attempting to replicate the musth phenomenon in a controlled setting, with their tool of choice being the potent psychedelic substance Lysergic acid diethylamide, better known by its shorter and catchier street name of LSD. This decision was premised on its ‘personality-disrupting’ effects, which they anticipated would mirror the unpredictable musth behaviour.

The LSD administration was a daunting task, because whereas humans know to begin with a cheeky quarter tab and see how we get on, or so we hear anyway, there were no such established dosages for animals as large as elephants, and so, determining the optimal dosage required careful deliberation. LSD is known for its extreme potency, with doses as low as .02 - .03 milligrams per kilogram of body weight capable of inducing hallucinations in humans. However, in an audacious move, the researchers decided to start big, and opted for a dosage of 297 mg of LSD for Tusko, equivalent to .1 milligrams per kilogram. This dosage was predicated on their assumption that elephants would exhibit a lower sensitivity to LSD, despite its overdose potential in humans.

As a result of this shooting from the hip guess work, the experiment took a disastrous turn, because shortly after LSD administration Tusko collapsed and started convulsing, clear signs of an overdose. The researchers hastily tried to counteract the overdose by injecting the elephant with promazine, an antipsychotic drug, and pentobarbital, a barbiturate. Unfortunately, despite their efforts, Tusko did not recover and tragically died.

This disaster did not escape the public’s attention, especially as Tusko was a much loved, and publicly known zoo animal. The media coverage amplified the criticisms about the unethical aspects of the experiment, questioning the use of such a high initial dose of LSD and a perceived lack of sufficient preparation for treating an overdose.

The ill-fated experiment also left a profound impact on the scientific community. It exposed the dangers of reckless drug administration and emphasized the importance of careful planning in such experiments. Furthermore, it also shed light on the need for more stringent ethical standards in animal research, and as a result, regulations for the use of LSD tightened.

Unfortunately, Dr West would eventually fall in with an organisation with little regard for pesky things such as laws and ethics – the CIA. His experiment with Tusko may have led to him becoming something of a pariah, but it also made him the perfect recruit for the infamous MK Ultra program, a CIA-backed project exploring mind control possibilities using LSD. Here, his cavalier attitude to the drug was highly valued, and he would go on to be the architect of even greater LSD related atrocities.

Ultimately, the LSD-elephant experiment serves as a grim testament to the potential pitfalls of scientific exploration when ethical boundaries are overlooked. But let us now move on, from one animal atrocity to another – the Soviet two headed dog experiments.

Two-Headed Dogs

Vladimir Demikhov is a name that resonates in the annals of scientific history. He was a Soviet scientist known for his groundbreaking, yet profoundly unsettling experiments in organ transplantation, which led to the creation of two-headed dogs.

Born in 1916, Demikhov was a biomedical scientist with an unorthodox vision that saw beyond the medical conventions of his time. He believed in the possibility of transplanting vital organs, an idea which was revolutionary, yet perceived as far-fetched during the 1940s and 50s. This audacious objective required him to push the boundaries of medical ethics, often causing unease and concern among his contemporaries and the wider public.

He conducted many transplant experiments in his day, but the one that would etch his name in the annals of biomedical history involved surgically grafting the head and forelegs of a dog onto the body of another. The aim was to observe the feasibility and implications of such a transplant, not only from a surgical perspective but also in terms of the physiological responses of the host organism.

The procedure would begin with Demikhov selecting two healthy dogs of different sizes. The smaller one, which would provide the additional head, was anesthetized, its head and upper body carefully severed at the shoulders.

In an act of unparalleled precision, Demikhov would then meticulously connect the major blood vessels and windpipe of the smaller dog’s head to the larger host dog. Despite the primitive surgical tools and rudimentary knowledge of the time, Demikhov managed to maintain sufficient blood flow to the smaller dog’s head, keeping it alive during the course of the procedure.

Following the operation, the grafted head would awaken, responding to the world around it with palpable awareness. It would blink, pant, lap at water, and even bare its teeth, behaviours that were profoundly disturbing and yet compellingly fascinating. These dog duos lived anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks, their demise ultimately brought about by the immune response of the host dog rejecting the grafted tissue.

Demikhov carried out this procedure multiple times, creating 20 such two-headed dogs over a span of 15 years. The transplanted heads survived from a few days to a month. The experiments, though scientifically groundbreaking, were met with widespread criticism, and for good reason. The distress caused to the animals was profound, and many argued that the short survival span of the grafts rendered the experiments more cruel than scientifically valuable.

But it cannot be denied, Demikhov’s work, while ethically contentious, significantly advanced the understanding of organ transplantation. His efforts, particularly with the issue of tissue rejection, laid the groundwork for subsequent breakthroughs in the field, including the world’s first human heart transplant by Dr Christiaan Barnard in 1967.

This makes Demikhov’s legacy a complicated one, as his work is a complex fusion of scientific progress and haunting ethical questions. The two-headed dogs, discomforting as their images may be, directly contributed to the saving of many thousands of lives in our time by ratcheting humankind ever closer to successful organ transplant techniques. Was it a price worth paying? That, is something that only you can answer.

Dogs Back from the Dead

Tragically, dogs appear to be a recurring theme in these weird experiments, with our next example being their use by one Dr Robert E. Cornish in 1934.

Cornish, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, found himself ensnared by an audacious ambition: to bridge the insurmountable chasm separating life and death. Supposedly, his use of dogs rather than humans was a conscious choice intended to sidestep the greater ethical morass of experimenting on people. In what was a grim nod to the biblical tale of resurrection, he named his test subjects Lazarus, after the man whom Jesus brought back from the dead.

The procedure for these experiments, despite their morbid underpinnings, were remarkably fastidious in their planning and execution. Each experiment began with the unfortunate subject being euthanized via an ether overdose. This method ensured no physical harm was inflicted upon their bodies. Once death was confirmed, the true crux of the experiment commenced.

The deceased dog was placed on a teeterboard, a simple seesaw-like device, that rocked the body back and forth, mimicking the circulation of blood. Concurrently, Cornish administered a cocktail of adrenaline and anticoagulants into the corpse, pharmaceutical agents designed to resuscitate the heart and prevent blood clotting.

In Cornish’s detailed records, he described that several Lazarus dogs reportedly regained consciousness, but their return to life was tragically far from perfect. Their movements were erratic and uncoordinated, and their behaviours were severely abnormal. Many exhibited blindness and could not stand or eat. Their disorientation and lack of typical response to stimuli suggested significant brain damage, presumably due to an insufficient oxygen supply during the revival process.

Their resurrections were also tragically brief; only surviving for a few hours or days following the procedure.

Despite the obvious drawbacks, Cornish enthusiastically proclaimed these experiments as successes. He posited them as groundbreaking feats, pioneering the path toward reversing death’s finality. Yet, to his peers and contemporaries, the Lazarus experiments were nothing short of a macabre travesty. Animal rights activists were rightfully outraged, and his colleagues, aghast at the ethical ramifications, distanced themselves. The outcry was sufficiently deafening to result in his expulsion from Berkeley.

Yet, in an astonishing twist, Cornish’s expulsion seemed only to fuel his audacity. Unperturbed by societal censure, he openly advocated escalating his experiments to human subjects. His desire for the next Lazarus found a potential volunteer in Thomas McMonigle, a death-row inmate, willing to bequeath his body post-execution. However, the state of California swiftly intervened, quashing any possibility of such an ethically contentious endeavour.

Cornish’s scientific journey was indeed an exploration into the intellectual abyss, with his ambitions pushing him into ethically contentious territories. While his daring did yield observations that contributed to developing modern CPR techniques, the controversy surrounding his work largely overshadowed these achievements.

In reflecting upon the Lazarus experiments, we are led to question the ethics of scientific ambition. While there is no doubt that Cornish’s work was a flagrant violation of animal rights, with its cruel, bizarre practices, it is also crucial to recognize the long-term benefits yielded. It helped lay the groundwork for modern CPR, potentially saving countless lives. But can these later advancements justify the initial cruelty?

Can the ends validate the means? This is certainly not as easy a quandary as it may have first appeared, and as ever, it is a calculation only you are able to make.

Blinking After Beheading

Every so often, a scientific myth bubbles to the surface, like that of French chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier’s alleged blinking experiment during his beheading; you know the one, that one where he supposedly blinked after his beheading to record how long he remained conscious for.

Mesmerising as the tale is, there is one slight issue with it… it simply isn’t true. His execution took place during the height of the Revolutionary French Terror, when people were being executed on an industrial scale, with 28 people being executed just in de Lavoisier’s session alone, and all in barely 35 minutes. Amidst this pandemonium, who’d have the time to conduct such an experiment, even if they were permitted to do so by the powers that be?

But fear not, because while that famous instance might be utter nonsense, there was one that was very, VERY real.

It all happened on the cold morning of the 28th of June 1905, when a convicted murderer named Henri Languille awaited his fate under the blade of the guillotine. In the crowd was one Dr Gabriel Beaurieux, who wanted to study the persistence of consciousness after decapitation, just as de Lavoisier mythically had before him.

Beaurieux’s experiment was not some impulsive thing he had cooked up in the heat of the moment. Instead, it was a scientific investigation built on a morbid but intellectual curiosity about death and consciousness that had consumed him for his entire life. He wasn’t the first to hypothesize about consciousness following beheading either; the curiosity has been prevalent since the dawn of executions.

What made his study particularly striking however, was his attempt to verify these suppositions under the close scrutiny of a modern methodical approach. The plan was a simple one, just like in the legend of de Lavoisier, Languille was to blink for as long as he could after his beheading, and the time would be recorded.

After the blade fell and Languille’s head rolled into the basket, Beaurieux bent in to observe, and sure enough, Languille’s eyes fluttered open. But there was something more than that going on, it didn’t just appear to be a reflex; a fading brain sending dull commands to its eyes, but rather it appeared as though Languille was actually still fully conscious; his eyes seemed to focus and darted to meet the doctor’s gaze. He called Languille’s name, and twice the eyes oriented towards him, seemingly reacting. This bizarre interaction lasted for several seconds before the eyelids drooped and consciousness appeared to fade.

The experiment was considered a roaring success, and consequently it sparked extensive discussion about human consciousness and its relation to the physical body: Does the brain die instantly following decapitation, or does it linger in a terrifying state of disembodied awareness? These questions nagged at the scientific and philosophical communities alike, prompting further exploration into consciousness and death.

It’s important to note that Beaurieux’s experiment was not without controversy and critique. Critics pointed out that the perceived awareness could be simply post-mortem reflexes or involuntary muscle movements, not consciousness, with Beaurieux’s willingness to find result making his mind see things that simply didn’t happen. Moreover, the ethical implications of the experiment were a point of great contention, even with the subject of the experiment being a man who was destined for death who fully consented to the experiment. Despite this, Beaurieux’s observations remain some of the most detailed accounts of post-decapitation activity and are a valuable resource to this day.

Interestingly, despite Beaurieux’s experiments having occurred over a century ago, we are still no closer to coming to a concrete answer on the matter of post-decapitation consciousness. Modern medicine knows beyond doubt that the brain can survive for a brief period following the cessation of blood flow. However, whether the decapitated head retains consciousness, awareness, or any form of sentient thought is still a matter of speculation and conjecture, with today’s scientific community largely leaning towards scepticism due to the lack of replicable, empirical evidence that has emerged in the century since.

If nothing else, Beaurieux’s experiment stands as an eerie testament to humanity’s pursuit of knowledge in all situations, even at the precipice of death. It reminds us of our relentless curiosity to comprehend the unknown, no matter how disquieting, and of course, if nothing else, while this investigation didn’t resolve the debate about consciousness after decapitation, it did cement a place in the annals of bizarre scientific history; a tale of ghoulish fascination that resonates in our collective memory to this day.

Stabbing Yourself in the Heart

Our final weird experiment takes us into the mind of one Werner Forssmann, a German researcher and physician from Berlin. His audacious self-experiment, which as the title made apparent involved stabbing himself in the heart, has been etched into the annals of history, not merely for its boldness, but for also revolutionizing cardiology.

Forssmann was no quack like some of the people we have seen today. Born in 1904, he was a bright lad from the very start, and pursued his medical education with fervour and curiosity. An initial inclination toward urology eventually gave way to cardiology during a residency at the Auguste Viktoria Hospital in Berlin, and so, the stage was set for the experiment that would make him famous.

Forssmann hypothesized that a catheter could be inserted directly into the heart, providing a direct route to inject drugs or dye for imaging. Despite the prevailing belief that such an intrusion would cause fatal damage, Forssmann’s conviction was unshakeable. Unable to sway his sceptical seniors and get a human trial approved, he decided to act as both doctor and patient, completely confident in his hypothesis.

The day to put it to the test finally came in 1929. He persuaded a surgical nurse, Gerda Ditzen, to assist him by lying to her about an operating-room emergency, not revealing his actual plan until the ball was already rolling. After calming down a shocked Ditzen, he sterilized both his arm and a catheter, numbed his arm with local anaesthetic, and proceeded to insert the catheter into the vein in his elbow.

Using a set of mirrors, Forssmann successfully guided the catheter, pushing it an unprecedented 60 cm up his vein and towards his heart. To prove the success of his procedure, he climbed two flights of stairs to the hospital’s radiology department to take an X-ray, which showed the catheter lodged in his right atrium. Despite a mild discomfort, he had no significant pain or negative effects, firmly validating his bold hypothesis.

This pioneering experiment laid the foundation for cardiac catheterization, a technique that has saved countless lives and advanced the understanding and treatment of heart diseases. It made possible a range of diagnostic procedures and treatments, including angiograms, stent insertions, and balloon angioplasties. Forssmann’s experiment, though viewed as reckless at the time, is now hailed as a milestone in the field of invasive cardiology.

However, Forssmann’s groundbreaking discovery was initially met with censure and scepticism. His superiors chastised his recklessness, leading him to abandon his promising career in cardiology. He then served as a medical officer during World War II, and after the war, he became a country doctor, almost forgotten by the medical community.

But decades later, his audacity was finally recognized. In 1956, Werner Forssmann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alongside André F. Cournand and Dickinson W. Richards, who had further developed his technique.

In his acceptance speech, he was nothing if not humble, stating “Seldom can it happen that the acknowledgment for a scientific achievement rewards the deserved more than in our case.” But given the incredible scope of his discovery, and the fact that he laid his own life on the line to prove it, we think a bit of arrogance is well earned here.

Key Takeaways

• The last two centuries have seen unprecedented technological progress driven by experimentation.
• Scientific progress often involves failure and ethical dilemmas, as seen in bizarre experiments.
• The Tusko LSD experiment highlighted the dangers of reckless drug administration and led to stricter ethical standards.
• Vladimir Demikhov’s two-headed dogs advanced organ transplantation but raised significant ethical concerns.
• Werner Forssmann’s self-experiment revolutionized cardiology, despite initial criticism and skepticism.

Sources

• Original Side Projects video: Historys Weirdest Experiments

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