Humans had served as experimental subjects in medical research long before 1900. In 1799 and 1800 more than forty volunteers participated in extensive trials on the effects of inhaling nitrous oxide gas. In 1803 Englishman Thomas Percival wrote a classic text on medical ethics in which he discussed experimentation on patients. Contributing to the increase in this type of research was the acceptance in the United States, beginning in the 1880s, of the germ theory of disease causation, which required more research with both animals and humans. Basic research of all kinds was also beginning in American medical schools. In the closing decades of the nineteenth century many examples of research on hospital patients in the United States and Europe were publicized, and opposition to such work developed among both medcal professionals and laymen. Many antivivisectionists who were critical of experimentation on animals soon joined this debate.
.....
This is a free excerpt of 150 words. This section contains 633 words. This
article contains 14,318 words (approx. 48 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our America 1900-1909: Medicine and Health Access Pass.
