Subjected to Science: Human Experimentation in America before the Second World War

Abstract

Long before the US government began conducting secret radiation and germ-warfare experiments, and long before the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments, medical professionals had introduced - and hotly debated the ethics of - the use of human subjects in medical experiments. In this book Susan Lederer draws on published reports, unpublished correspondence, the popular press, and antivivisection materials to provide a full-length history of biomedical research with human subjects from 1890 to 1940. Lederer examines the situations in which human experimentation occurred as well as the social arrangements made between experimenters and their subjects. She offers detailed accounts of experiments - benign and otherwise - conducted on both healthy and unhealthy men, women, and children. These accounts then form the background for a discussion of such issues as patient consent, self-experimentation, the authority of orthodox medicine, and the ethical problems raised by the use of human subjects in biomedical research. Examining the development of medical research ethics in the pre-World War II period, this book puts contemporary issues in perspective. The book provides valuable historical background for understanding current controversies, from debates about the use of animals in medical research to concerns about informed consent in human research.