How John Hunters Self-Experimentation Revolutionized Venereal Disease Treatment

Abstract

John Hunter Self-experimentation Introduction Section 1: Introduction Outline Personal Background details of John Hunter Educational background, including the periods Career background of John Hunter The happenings at that time and the people’s beliefs at that time John Hunter’s contribution to medicine and science Born in 1728 in Kilbride East, Scotland as the youngest child in a family of ten, his father died when he was young and was left under the care of his mother upon where at the age of 17, he moved to London to study under his elder brother William Hunter, who was an anatomist and obstetrician at that time (Wright, 1981). Around 1748, he learned anatomy by assisting his elder brother with dissections in anatomy school, where William worked when he later worked in the army as a dentist and James Spence vaccine (Kaya and Sindel, 2016). In 1764, he managed to set up his anatomy school where he built up a collection of living animals with which he used as anatomy specimens, upon wherein 1767, he became a fellow of the royal society and was elected to the American philosophical society in 1787 vaccine (Kaya and Sindel, 2016). Around this time, venereal diseases were considered to be divine punishments and the ancient doctors, physicians, and surgeons wrote about diseases of the genitalia whereby chancres, vaginal discharge, pustules, condylomata and urethra discharge were described in conjunction with their treatment (Gruber, Lipozenčić and Kehler, 2015) In 1767, the royal society elected Hunter to lead venereal disease research since the medics believed that gonorrhoea was an early stage of syphilis and therefore argued that if physicians treated gonorrhoea infections, people would not contact syphilis (Brandes and Ferguson, 2012). Hunter further infected himself with gonorrhoea for research purposes, and through the findings; he concluded that the two were not different entities but same disease in advanced stages (Brandes and Ferguson, 2012) Together with Edward Jenner, Hunter was the pioneers of the smallpox vaccine (Kaya and Sindel, 2016). Hunter's contributions to medicine were vast; the central issue of discussion was his contribution to venereal diseases to observe the course of gonorrhoea by treating the disease's symptoms with mercurial ointments (Kaya and Sindel, 2016). Section 2: John Hunter and his self-experimentation Outline Period of existence of the self-experimentation of the venereal disease John Hunter involvement and any other parties involved in the experiments and the discoveries Venereal disease at that time John Hunter’s self-infliction of the venereal disease, findings and conclusions By late18th century, Hunter had made exceptional contributions to the advancement of medicine through observations and experiments, considering that he had studied anatomy for 12 years, whereby he later signed up as a surgeon in the British army in 1760 after a short period of surgical practices in various London hospitals (Wright, 1981). Hunter was considered a martyr of science after he inoculated himself with a venereal disease poison to differentiate gonorrhoea and syphilis. Hunter believed that the two diseases were one whereby he argued that it was possible to contract different diseases simultaneously but was not possible to have them in one place, at the same time (Wright, 1981). Hunter experimented on the effects of litigation of the blood supply from the carotid artery to the antlers, where he came to understand how the body behaved, noting that it increased the collateral circulation to the antlers, giving insight to the cure popliteal aneurysm by proximal litigation of the femoral artery life (Kaya and Sindel, 2016). Further experiments conducted by Hunter concerning human anatomy demonstrated that; the lymphatic system was a separate entity from the blood system. Blood circulations in pregnant women entailed independence of the mother and the foetus, whereby the human foetus was independent of the mother as far as blood circulation was concerned (Kaya and Sindel, 2016). Hunter also proved that the testicle completed its descent into the scrotum in 8 months, though otherwise in the early days of human anatomy life (Kaya and Sindel, 2016). Hunter's contributions made him led to fallouts in his seniors, such as his brother William and Dr Percivall Pott, whom he had worked under during his career life (Kaya and Sindel, 2016). When Hunter self-inflicted the gonorrhoea infection from a patient on the cuts of his penis, he did not know that the patient suffered from both gonorrhoea and syphilis, meaning his findings and conclusions were wrong (Rolleston, 1934). According to Hunter, gonorrhoea and syphilis were the same, but later on, after more than 50 years of research, his theory was disapproved by a French physician...