A HUMAN GUINEA PIG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 321, 17 August 1945, Page 23

A HUMAN GUINEA PIG

(Written for "The Listener" by DR.

MURIEL

BELL

. Nutritionist to the

Department of Health)

ERE is a story told by Professor Drummond, now Scientific Adviser to the British Ministry of Supply. It illustrates a fact which many people do not know, that medical students and doctors have often been the object of experimentation. The following story concerns a young man who lived at the time when Captain Cook was recording the results of his observations on the use of vegetables and sauerkraut for protecting ships’ crews from scurvy. The story is of a young medical man who apparently first had the intention of becoming an anatomist, in association with the great Dr. John Hunter. It seems that he was diverted from this course of activity by two chance observations, to each of which the present-day scientist might with justification remark "Sez you," or use less vulgar words with the same essential meaning. Unfortunately, this young man, Dr. William Stark, was innocent and credulous. One of the observations was ascribed to Benjamin Franklin, who was said to have stated that most people ate too much, and that he himself had lived for a fortnight on 114lbs. of bread a day, with nothing to drink but water; at the end of the forthight he had felt remarkably fit (sezze!). The eminent Army. Surgeon, Sir John Pringle, added the statement that an old woman of 90 had assured him, apparently with an innocence that. did not betray her returning childish imagination, that she had lived for years on nothing to eat but mutton fat. Paid the Penalty Dr, Stark was a born experimentalist; he determined to repeat Franklin’s trial of bread and water, making careful notes of exactly how much he was taking, even making the food himself so that there would be no error, and recording his feelings and symptoms. His experiment lasted. from June 11 to September 13, 1769, during which he kept very accurate notes. About two months after the experiment commenced, he noticed that his gums were sore and that one nostril was purple and bled very easily. It is obvious to us that he was already suffering from scurvy, the symptoms of which grew more pronounced during the next month, Although in touch with such important men as Cullen, Pringle and John Hunter, he was unaware that he was suffering from scurvy. He felt so ill that he changed his diet to his usual fare for a few days. Recovering a little, he went on with his experiment. Anxious about his gums and skin, he consulted Pringle, to whom he apparently voiced his suspicions that he was suffering from scurvy. In those days it was thought that as sailors suffered so much from scurvy, it must be due to the salt in their meat; Pringle advised him to abstain from salt. Unfortunately, the winter season, with its absence of vegetables, acted as. the last straw. Stark died on February |

23, 1770, as a result of a fever contracted while he was in such a low state of health. A few years later, Sir John Pringle, impressed by the report by Captain Cook to the Royal Society on the treatment of scurvy (for which Cook had received a medal) accepted the plaudits of that Society for reading a paper to them on the value of infusions of vegetables in the treatment of scurvy. The change in his views was too late to save Stark.