self-experimentation
Tested it on themselves first, sometimes more than once.
The Surgeon Who Tried the Experiment
He inoculated himself with a patient's discharge to settle a scientific question, and his reputation was so enormous that nobody checked his work for fifty-one years.
The Man Who Drank the Plague
He built a small closet, filled it with the vomit of the dying, and sat inside breathing deeply — all to prove yellow fever wasn't contagious.
The Man Who Set Himself on Fire to Cure Hiccups
He inherited 132,000 acres at age two and died in a debtors' prison at thirty-seven, and those are not the strange parts.
The Chemist Who Tasted Everything
He discovered oxygen two years before the man history credits with discovering oxygen.
The Chemist Who Tasted Everything
He described hydrogen cyanide as having a 'pleasantly sharp acidulous flavor,' the way someone else might describe a good Riesling.
The Man Who Boiled His Own Urine and Found Light
He boiled 1,500 gallons of urine looking for gold and accidentally discovered the first new element since antiquity.
The Man Who Recorded Everything
After nearly walking into Lake Michigan in 1927, Buckminster Fuller decided instead to document his entire life in fifteen-minute intervals.