Self-Experimenters Step Up for Science: Scientific American
Eight stories of do-it-on-yourself discovery illuminate the promise and perils of a sample size of one
By JR Minkel
Quick—what’s the first thought that pops into your head when you hear the word “experiment”? Odds are that what did not bubble up was the image of a 16th-century Italian nobleman who lived for 30 years on a platform suspended from a large straight-beam balance. But it should have. Historians of medicine consider Santorio Santorio—aka Santorio Santorii, aka Sanctorius of Padua—the first physician to have knowingly submitted his theoretical speculations to the rigor of experimental testing that today is taken for granted. By living on the balance, he was able to weigh himself against his daily intake of food and liquids, and his combined expulsions, leading him to the discovery of the insensible perspiration that wafts from our bodies. (Cont….)
