A good scientist is never off-duty, which is perhaps why researchers throughout history have experimented on themselves. The 18th century anatomist John Hunter is said to have tested the infectious nature of gonorrhea by applying a patient’s pus to his own pertinent organ. In the 19th century, James Young Simpson proved that chloroform is an excellent anesthesia by knocking himself out, along with two unlucky assistants. And as recently as 1982, Barry Marshall could truly be said to have earned his eventual Nobel Prize for proving that ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori bacteria – after drinking a lovely cloudy solution of the microscopic culprits.
The other day, I was having lunch with my friend Daniel Glaser at the champagne bar in St Pancras International station. The item that most tempted me on the menu was a risotto with mussels, although I hesitated ordering at first. I tend to avoid shellfish, mostly because having a PhD in Microbiology indoctrinates you with a deep-seated squeamishness about all things Salmonella-related. But a few weeks previously, I’d decided to face my silly fears and had downed a gorgeous seafood pasta at Paradiso. It didn’t give me food poisoning, but almost immediately after finishing my lips started tingling, my eyes began to water and I developed mild respiratory problems that lasted a few days. After googling a bit, I decided it had probably been a mild allergic reaction – apparently quite common in adults, even if they’d never reacted as children – but I didn’t know which had been to blame, the prawns or the mussels.
So here I was, presented with a good experimental opportunity. If I ate the risotto and didn’t react, it was likely to have been the prawns that had troubled me earlier. But if I succumbed to the allergy, I’d know it was time to kiss mussels goodbye forever.
“Go for it,” Daniel advised, reasoning that knowledge was power and it would be good to know one way or the other. It was easy for him to say. Scientific curiosity notwithstanding, I was marginally less enthusiastic: the respiratory symptoms had made it difficult to sleep last time, and I wasn’t thrilled about going through all that again so soon. Also, food allergies can be dangerously capricious: hives one day and anaphylaxis the next.
“Don’t worry,” he added quickly. “I trained as a paramedic in the Israeli army.”
Reassuring.
I’m sure you know where this is going. Dear reader, I ate that risotto. And about a minute after finishing, I experienced the same symptoms – plus a few new ones.
“It’s unlikely to be psychosomatic,” Dan said helpfully, when – a bit of iPhonery later – it turned out the added extras also fit. “You wouldn’t make up symptoms you weren’t expecting.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Actually, we could have designed this experiment a lot better.”
As I coughed discreetly into my serviette, he outlined a plan designed to reproduce the day’s results and delve further into the important question of whether I had to eat the actual mussel or whether sauce containing mussels would be enough.
“You need to go to Marks and Spencers and buy all the permutations as ready-meals!” he said. “Then you draw a matrix and test all the possibilities. Of course you’d have to take a few days in between if you’d reacted, just to clear your system…and maybe you could try it with and without a prophylactic dose of antihistamines…oh, that’s a lot more permutations…”
I don’t think I’ll be eating shellfish again, experimentally or otherwise. I can report that prompt intake of over-the-counter antihistamines does seem to alleviate a food allergy – the symptoms were milder and only lasted few hours. Of course I can’t really prove it, but I like to think that in a parallel universe there was a control me, miserable and coughing into her pillow later that night.
Mm. Parallel universes are over-rated. Glad you were OK.
Thanks, Richard. I realized later that the experiment was flawed – I’d tried a bit of Daniel’s soup, and someone mentioned that prawn heads are a common addition to soup stock. I was offered prawn at a reception last night and turned it down.
At some point I’m going to have to try calamari again, which I really do love. Apparently these allergens can cross-react.
Problem with this sort of thing is that we don’t have a control Jenny. Maybe we should clone you?
Would come in handy with the novel writing.
Would you argue with yourself over creative differences?
I have been having a similar argument with myself over a scallop allergy I seem to have developed a few years ago. I can eat mussels, oysters etc etc without any problem.
The question in my mind is this… can I eat the species of Scallops here in Vancouver (which are different to those in Aust)?
So far I’ve decided not to risk anaphylaxis and test it out. But they taste sooo good! Hmm, maybe I’ll get an epipen and give it a shot, so to speak
Darren, some of the websites say that a lot of the main allergens cross-react even between disparate sorts, such as shrimp and squid. It would probably be too similar…it’s a pity we can’t make our own safe skin tests like the sort medics use.
Or maybe you can set up an ELISA-based assay! How cool would that be.
If I wasn’t on my iPod on a bus right now, I’d point to that one xkcd comic that is exactly about this situation.
Oo! please do try to find it.
One of the people who asked me a question at Skeptics the other night was suggesting that science used to be more ‘glorious’ because scientists experimented on themselves. I was trying to work out if this made sense – are we less heroic because we play by the rules? Some might argue that choosing this career – with its poor career prospects and low pay – is already suffering for our art.
You really do have to be careful with seafood. On one of our first dates, I took The Woman Now Known As Mrs Gee to a pub restaurant where the house speciality was enormous steaming bowls of buttered, garlic prawns. TWNKAMG was looking forward to this, even though, she said, she had a mild allergy to seafood – a mild tingling in the lips and some skin irritation. And so we enjoyed the buttered, garlic prawns and so on and so forth.
When we got back to my gaff, however, TWNKAMG swelled up like a balloon, and for a day of so suffered what was plainly an allergic reaction. It subsided, and we thought no more about it, except that we should avoid dishes featuring too much seafood in future.
Over the next couple of years, though, TWNKAMG became iller and iller. She became, thin, tired, listless, complained of all sorts of strange aches and pains, and in the end, incredibly thirsty. Her immune system had become confused by the prawns and started attacking her body – and so it was that TWNKAMG became an insulin-dependent diabetic.
Wow! That’s an amazing story. If I wasn’t already convinced, I am now.
Can she eat fish? I am desperately hoping that a total fish ban isn’t on the cards.
Wow. Was it actually the prawns that caused that, do you know? That’s a terrible story, Henry.
She avoids all seafood. Though she has been known to have a nibble at the end of a fish finger. Some of it is, however, hereditary. She’s allergic o various things, not just fish. Her maternal grandmother was diabetic, and one of her daughters – TWNKAMG’s aunt – is allergic to just about everything. So if you haven’t go a family history of this sort of thing you’re probably OK.
@Richard – yes, we think it was the prawns. If she’d just had a prawn or two she’d probably have been OK. But a bowlful represented too much of a challenge and drover her immune system crazy.
I guess soon fish will be extinct if you believe the broadsheets, so it will all be a moot point. Although someone with business sense might work out, Oryx and Crake-style, how to produce fish fingers in the lab.
My mantra, as we go to the chippie, is EAT COD NOW, BEFORE IT GOES EXTINCT
And you might not have realized this, but oryx nor crake are indeed fish, from a cladistic point of view. They are also potentially very good words in Scrabble(TM).
mmmmm…fish crakes.
Splort
Interesting, I should say, because I’ve had my own troubles with Hyacinth beans and Delhi Belly that it has induced in the past. Coming to that skeptic who advocated self experimentation, I think he should’ve been asked about his willingness to contribute towards restoring the glory of science.
Coming to Mr.Gee’s example, I feel it presents a really tough problem, because antibody cross reactivity is much narrower than bioinformatics homology modelling can account for(Lesk “Often, a 50% sequence similarity can result in upto 90% structural similarity”)
A new challenge for bioscience, I feel…
Often, a 50% sequence similarity can result in up to 90% structural similarity
That, I think, is one of the Questions Of The Age.
I’m not sure how glorious it is to experiment on yourself – it’s actually not good experimental design. I’ve often wondered why Barry Marshall drank those bacteria. The most logical explanation is that he couldn’t convince the regulatory bodies to let him conduct a proper clinical trial on the use of antibiotics for ulcers, so he did it as a stunt to press the point that it was worth trying.
I’ve wondered that too. An n=1 experiment, where the subject and the experimenter are the same person, sounds more crackpot than Nobel Laureate to me. But in this case, the ends justified the means, IMHO.
Regarding self-experimentation with potentially lethal allergens, I’m quite surprised you tried this, even with a military-trained ex-paramedic on hand (I think an epi-pen might have been more useful, honestly). But you’re still around to blog about it, so all is well I suppose.
Jenny, this is the comic I was thinking of:
HAHA!
Yes, I heart that one.
Heh. This is like the classic episode of Cheers with the peanut machine. One lever gives you a peanut, one an electric shock. Repeat as necessary.
At least it was mild allergies, not a dose of the
screaming shitsupset tummy 🙂Investigator bias, volunteer bias and…bugger, what’s the other one called? Hell, I have an exam on this in a couple of hours… Anyway, I can’t see that passing IRB 🙂
@Eva: Great cartoon. Somehow, I still haven’t learned to avoid the pathway on the right.
I guess I just thought if my allergy caused tingles and wheezing, it wouldn’t cause anything more serious. I’ve been eating shellfish on and off all my life, so I guess I didn’t feel it was particularly dangerous.
All you North Americans keep talking about this epi pen thing – I’ve never seen one for sale over the counter here. Last time I was in the US I noticed that the well-equipped Yank can even purchase a cardiac defibrillator…what’s next, DIY home surgery kits?
Yegods. Either of those would kill you if you weren’t trained properly.
Wouldn’t the epi pen just give you a big set of the jitters? You can get one here in France, if need be. Or I’ll send one over the Manche with Richard whom I’m planning to invite over for a seminar in order to enable him to tour the Continent and associated islands.
Strange what happened to you, Jenny, as one day for other appear the allergy to the shellfish without before to have felt allergy symptoms, won’t an special specie of shellfish that caused you allergy?.
My doc here actually suggested I get an epipen to carry around with me in case a I randomly ingest a stray scallop (but didn’t offer a prescription). Apparently the symptoms can get worse with each exposure (as pointed out above) and my understanding is that a good shot of epinephrine is about the only thing that will save you in the case of severe anaphylaxis.
Richard, the effects of improper self administration of a defib (or Packer whacker as we call them in Australia) is not pretty. Some clown in one of my undergrad physiology classes decided to give it a go once.
Alejandro, to be honest I had been noticing the past year or so that I’d been feeling a little clogged up after shelfish – nothing really serious, but noticeable. I had a strong reaction to some Thai fish oil that had been stored at room temp – apparently there is something in fish oil that can go off and be highly allergenic. So the warning signs have been there.
I’ve only seen someone get an epi injection once, a friend in ER after a bee sting, and it looked awful – apparently your heart gallops for an hour or so. Cure/disease &cetera.
in case I randomly ingest a stray scallop
which of course is just one of the many hazards of living in British Columbia, eh?
I love ‘Packer Whacker’. Brilliant.
Regarding Packer Whackers, I guess the idea is your heart has stopped so you might as well risk someone trying to resuscitate you.
If I recall correctly my mother, who is allergic to bees, had a syringe and solution of something in the fridge at all times, though I don’t think she ever used it. Perhaps that was anti-venom, though, not epinephrine.
Another possible case of disastrous electrical self-experimentation is GR Mines, the originator of ideas about re-entrant arrthythmic pathways in the heart and briefly Prof of Physiology at McGill. Mines was found dead connected to his lab recording equipment in 1914, aged just 29. I once wrote a bit about him here, (sorry – bit of big PDF) or there is some info on the McGill site here.
Damn…that’s sad. What a story…(and very skillful way of putting us back on topic!)
Actually it was the mention of the “Packer Whacker” (defibrillator) that made me think of it..!
Another famous early C20th self-experiment was Henry Head’s severing of some of his sensory nerves in his forearm, an experiment done with WHR Rivers, more famous these days as the psychiatrist in Pat Barker’s Regeneration novels. More on Rivers here.
Of course, the popularity of self-experimentation in late C19th and early C20th was largely because people could, and did, make very fundamental discoveries in those days by doing simple experiments on humans. One of my favourites is the JS Haldane stuff c. 1905-14 on alveolar gas composition, where in one paper the authors had measurements on samples obtained from themselves either:
(i) in the lab
(ii) at the bottom of a Cornish mine shaft; and
(iii) at the summit of Ben Nevis.
Patient Response Bias! That’s what I couldn’t remember.
Isaac Newton pressed on his eyeballs with various items, including a bodkin, a brass plate, and his finger, and then recorded the images and colors that he saw as a result. For the bodkin at least, he stuck it as far back between the eyeball and the wall of the orbit as he could manage.
Nutter.
I once read that pressing on the supraorbital nerve, as it exits the supraorbital notch or foramen along the superior margin of the orbit, could be used to determine whether a person was unconscious or moribund. Stupidly, I tried this experiment on myself. The pain was pretty intense … if I had been unconscious or moribund, I think I would have returned to a condition of acute awareness. And punched the person who pressed on my supraorbital nerve.
giggles
Is there any rhyme or reason to the lights and colors you see when you press on your eyeball? Interesting. I think it’s a great experiment, but I wouldn’t have included a knife in my materials and methods.
@Kristi – Mrs Gee says she knows how to do the Vulcan Death Grip.
@Jenny – Phosphenes.
bq. @Kristi – Mrs Gee says she knows how to do the Vulcan Death Grip.
why so do I, or so does any a man, but do they sleep when you do it?
(Bonus point for spotting the mangled literature reference)
@Jenny – Phosphenes.
You sure they’re not midichlorians?
Regarding epi-pens, here in Canadiana I believe you’d need a prescription I think – I doubt they’re available over the counter but I could ask someone nearby who carries one. As for Packer Whackers, I see them all over the place in community centres, airports, wherever – and it scares the bejeezus out of me that someone who has no idea how to use one might be standing there reading the instructions and getting ready to shock someone. Eekz.
‘seasy. You just shout ‘Charging to 360’ then ‘CLEAR‘ and zap them.
I’ve seen it
on TVin the movies, it must be true.here in Canadiana I believe you’d need a prescription I think
Yes. A coworker of mine had an allergic kid, and he had trouble getting more than a certain number of pens (for school/home etc.), or it took a long time to replace or something. And he was an MD, so you’d think he could just write prescriptions for epipens until he had enough =P
He could, but he couldn’t read his own writing. Or (wait for it) he should have used a fountain, rather than an epi, pen.
We’re not going to be penciling you in for any stand-up comedy gigs, Richard.
You writing me off?
Please stop.
No. I’m impenetrable.
I scrolled down to write that your post reminds me of J B S Haldane, Jenny, but Austin scooped (scalloped?) me. That’ll teach me to go off for a day.
Henry, that is an awful story about proto-Mrs-Gee and I am so sorry to read about her health issues. However, I am not sure why you think it was the prawns that were to blame, rather than anything else.
PS What happened to Eva’s flask?
I am a human now!
_The other day, I was having lunch with my friend Daniel Glaser at the champagne bar in St Pancras International station. _
Some might argue that choosing this career – with its poor career prospects and low pay – is already suffering for our art.
I know that one bar journey does not a glamorous career make, but scientists do get a reasonable standard of living and do, with luck and skill and timing, get to do something interesting, unusual, worthwhile or rare.
Nurses, lawyers and cinema managers don’t tend to get to go to Antarctica, or space, or the depths of the ocean, or keep interesting company.
I’m glad you’re OK, Jenny. Allergic reactions are at the least, weird and annoying.
Epi-pens are available from your GP on prescription – though they might want to look into your allergy more.
I’ve a childhood allergy which I’m thinking of talking to my GP about to get an epi-pen or see if there’s anything else I can do. Apparently allergies get worse as you get older. Yay!
I couldn’t actually afford the champagne, Scott. 😉
I should talk to my GP about this. But I’ve been put off by a friend who tried for two years to get an allergy test on the NHS and every time she took off work to go to the surgery, she got bumped by an emergency. I don’t know if she ever got her diagnosis in the end. Apparently it’s just a standard skin test, but it seemed to be a bit of a palaver.
Maxine, a bit disappointed because I initially thought you were saying that I wrote like Haldane.
Nurses, lawyers and cinema managers don’t tend to get to go to Antarctica, or space, or the depths of the ocean, or keep interesting company.
well, only one of four for the vast majority of scientists, actually.
I know some lawyers who keep good company.
Obviously. They know you.
I am a human now!
Why am I thinking of the Elephant Man now?
This discussion has become ink-omprehensible.
I can’t BELIEVE your friend suggested you “buy all the permutations as ready-meals … then you draw a matrix and test all the possibilities”. That’s just RIDICULOUS!
…when a resolution III factorial design would give you just as much information from half the number of trials!
Re defibrillators, I believe the ones you see on the wall in public places are the automated variety (AED) like the ones I’ve been trained to use at work and are – we’ve been assured – pretty much idiot proof: when you open the lid they talk to you in a commanding (American) voice and tell you what to do, and they analyse the patient’s ECG for ‘shockability’ before they will deliver a shock. If I thought someone was having a heart attack and no qualified help was on the scene I’d have no hesitation in grabbing the AED, and I hope someone would do the same for me…
…when a resolution III factorial design would give you just as much information from half the number of trials
You know, I was just about to say the same thing. Possibly.
Nurses, lawyers and cinema managers don’t tend to get to go to Antarctica, or space, or the depths of the ocean, or keep interesting company.
well, only one of four for the vast majority of scientists, actually.
I would be very surprised if any scientists collected the set of all four. 🙂
My point was more that for all the protestations, science careers can offer something interesting and different to many other professions. And I say that as someone who looks in from the edge, and sometimes wishes they were in the middle.