Hi James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [email protected] Department of Psychology University of Winnipeg Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 CANADA
>>> "Mike Palij" <[email protected]> 20-Mar-09 9:30 AM >>> (4) I can see how Jim Clark's presentation of Goldberger's testing might cause disgust in students (or most ordinary people). When he presents: |> *Filth parties*: Goldberger, wife, and assistants injected with |> blood from affected people and later ate scrapings from scabs, |> urine, and runny feces of ill; did not get ill This is a pretty messy picture but I wonder where this description came from? Lawrence K Altman, science/medical writer for the NY Times wrote a 1999 book entitled "Who Goes First? The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine" also describes Goldberger's research. Although there were injections of blood from people with pellegra, whether scrapings of stuff were eaten is subject to interpretation. Altman writes: |...Goldberger swallowed capsules contrining urine, feces, and skin |taken from patients with severe cases of pellagra. ... |On May 7, again in Spartanburg, he repeated the swallowing experimetn |on himself and five other volunteers, including his wife, Mary, the |mother of their four children, who had insisted on the privilege of |representing women as a volunteer in the experiments. ... |None of the volunteers developed pellagra. (p243-244) Mental imagery is a subjective thing but I think that swallowing a capsule with disgusting stuff might be easier to handle than, say, taking in spoonfuls of gloppy gook. JC I would have to try and track down my source, which I'm relatively sure would have been on the internet. I mention in class that material was mixed with flour into a kind of paste (which is how my source described it). Here are some sources, some of which mention capsules as Mike's quotes did and some the mixing into a dough. http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/Goldberger/docs/pellegra_5.htm http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=4821 http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/121/5/372 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/12/health/the-new-yorker-who-changed-the-diet-of-the-south.html?sec=health I also wondered when capsules were first used to ingest medicines, and it turns out to be quite early (certainly long before Goldberger did his studies). See (second long link is from googling medicine and "history of capsules". http://www.tokai-cap.co.jp/e_capsule/history.html http://books.google.ca/books?id=VAmbWj9aK_oC&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=medicine+%22history+of+capsules%22&source=bl&ots=e2abXsgI3n&sig=O7Ryel1DMdvp5xiKExHqWOafGrU&hl=en&ei=17LDSfXmIJOWMtPyiMAE&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result MP Also, it seems to me that Goldberger's research has less to do with the other studies which seem to have been selected for the incredibly bad judgment used in doing them. In contrast to the vomit doctor, Goldberger's research allowed one to reach a practical and ultimately acceptable conclusion. This research has more in common with Warren and Marshall's research on whether H. pylori is a possible cause of gastric ulcers (see: http://tinyurl.com/cwvblf ). If one needs a "grossness factor", Marshall drank a beaker of H. pylori in order to show it would make him sick and could be treated with antibiotics. In 2005, Warren and Marshall got the Nobel prize in medicine for this work. So, maybe I need a "goodies" update. On not. JC I would disagree about the "vomit doctor." Experiments do NOT always lead to the correct conclusion, but they are nonetheless preferable to other approaches to answering scientific questions. The only problem with the "vomit doctor" that I can see is that he derived an overly broad conclusion, that is, "not contagious" versus "not contagious by ingestion." Interesting that Goldberger used blood injections as well. Take care Jim --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
