An Unexpected History of the Body

What It Covers

The Royal Society archives reveal historical medical beliefs and practices from the past 500 years, including bizarre anatomical theories, early inoculation experiments, self-experimentation, and how accidental discoveries advanced understanding of human physiology.

Key Questions Answered

• •Smallpox inoculation risk assessment: James Jurin's 1720s quantitative analysis showed inoculation carried 2% mortality versus 16% for natural smallpox infection, establishing the first rigorous statistical approach to vaccine safety evaluation despite significant individual risk.
• •Gastric physiology through trauma: William Beaumont studied fur trapper Alexis St. Martin's gunshot-created stomach opening from 1822, inserting food on silk strings at hourly intervals to map digestion rates, proving stomach acid activates only during eating.
• •Ulcer causation paradigm shift: Barry Marshall swallowed Helicobacter pylori cultures in the 1980s to prove bacteria, not stress, caused peptic ulcers, developing gastritis within nine days and overturning decades of surgical treatment with antibiotics instead.
• •Self-experimentation methodology: Historical medical advances relied on researchers testing theories on themselves, prisoners, and family members before ethical frameworks existed, revealing physiological mechanisms through direct observation of adverse events and anatomical anomalies.