GUINEA PIG

SCIENTISTS
Vivian Zheng: Blue Block 1

What are Guinea Pig Scientists?

guinea pig
n. Informal.thesubjectofanysortofexperiment.
Guinea pig scientists are scientists who experiment on themselves as
a test subject. Also known as self-experimentation, these guinea
pigs devote their lives to the study of their field, and even risk their
lives to uncover the secrets of science.
Most people self-experiment because they feel the need to make
their own contributions to science and to the world in something
theyre passionate about. Famous examples of guinea pig scientists
include Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde from Robert Louis Stevensons book, in
which the scientist discovers his evil being in a personality
experiment, Pierre and Marie Curie in the famous radium discovery,
and Santorio Santorio, who wondered if what we ingest in the form of
food and drink was equal to the amount we expel in the form of feces
and urine.

Lazzaro Spallanzani: Chapter 2

An Italian self-experimenter in the 1770s
Devoted most of his life to experimenting on how
the human digestion functions and digests food
Before digestion experiments, Lazzaro was
already famous for many previous experiments
including aiming sunbeams at salamanders in a dark
room, boldly climbing the Italian mountains, and
floating to a spot in the Apennines mountain range
on a raft made of tree stumps
Began digestion experiments at 47, while he was a
professor of natural history at the university in
Pavia

Lazzaro Spallanzani, 17291799

Spallanzanis Digestion Experiments

Lazzaros digestion experiments first began on a variety of animals, pushing hard objects like
tin tubes stuffed with food down the animals throats, and noting how they digested the food.
After animal experimentation, Lazzaro began experimenting on himself:
Started with a soft experiment, stuffing chewed bread into a linen bag and seeing how long it
took for it to come out in the feces. After 23 hours, the bread bag came out with the bag
and thread still intact, but the bread inside completely gone
Next, he swallowed bread bags with more layers of cloth, and food inside hard capsules.
These capsules were scariest, and could possibly get stuck in his stomach or tear his organs.
Nevertheless, Spallanzani filled a wooden tube with chewed veal, put the tube in a linen bag,
and swallowed everything. The food package exited his body after 22 hours, the bag and
tube intact but empty
Lazzaro repeated these experiments with other types of food, and a combination of chewed
and non-chewed portions

Spallanzanis Digestion Experiments

(Contd)
From his previous experiments, Spallanzani concluded that chewed food was digested more quickly than
non-chewed food, because they got more thoroughly exposed to the digestive juices.
Spallanzani also concluded that the human digestive system was not a grinding machine like that of
turkeys and chickens.
Next, he wanted to study human stomach fluid:
vomited up gastric juice before eating or drinking anything in the morning, which produced enough juice
for several experiments.
experimented with boiled beef, and concluded that his gastric juice was causing a chemical change in
the substance.
Continued to test his gastric fluids, and concluded that the stomach was doing the digestion, and that
gastric juice in the human body was an acid.
At this point, Spallanzani had obtained enough results from his body to form several conclusions about
human digestion, which would eventually lead to more details about digestion from future generations.

PROS AND CONS OF SPALLANZANIS

SELF-EXPERIMENTATION
PROS

CONS

Discovered that chewed food gets digested

more quickly

Tested on animals harmed them and made them

suffer

Discovered that the digestive organs squeeze

very gently

Swallowed food in hard capsules could tear

organs or get stuck

Found out that our digestive system is not like a

chickens or turkeys not a grinding machine

Vomited up gastric juice each morning could

create health issues

Concluded that gastric juice caused a chemical

change in digested food

Experiments made his stomach muscles contract

painfully for several hours afterwards

Contributed greatly to the worlds knowledge on

how the digestive system works

WHAT DO WE KNOW NOW?

Lazzaro Spallanzani contributed greatly to the world of science.
His experiments gave the world much insight on the human digestive system,
and how it digests the food we intake.
He discovered that chewed food gets digested more quickly than non-chewed
food, discovered that the digestive organs squeeze very gently, and confirmed
the statement that gastric juice is an acid, and creates a chemical change in
digested food.
After experimenting with digestion, Spallanzani continued his experiments on
things like human bodily functions and animal reproduction. His investigations
into the development of microscopic life in nutrient culture solutions paved the
way for the research of Louis Pasteur.
Lazzaro Spallanzani was a truly great scientist, and created a start for many
other great discoveries. His work truly advanced science, and will be forever
impactful as the generations pass.

MY OPINION
In my opinion, I think self-experimentation is acceptable as long
as the experimenter has enough background knowledge on the
subject or field that they are testing. For example, Lazzaro
Spallanzani was an educated professor at a university in Pavia
who knew what he was doing when he began his digestion
experiments. Also, Pierre and Marie Curie, who experimented
with the deadly element radium, were both very brilliant
physicists who were very experienced in their field. However, I
think self-experimentation is unacceptable if someone
unexperienced in that certain field wants to analyze themselves.
If the experiment presents risks or problems that the scientist
is unwilling to face, then I think they should not self-experiment.
Take in account, for instance, Stefania Follini, who voluntarily
lived in a underground cave for 131 days in order to test
circadian rhythms. As long as the scientist is willing to accept
the risks for self-experimentation, they should be allowed to
study and research on themselves.

Everything is
theoretically
impossible, until
it is done.

~Robert A. Heinlein