The Human Subject

Humanity’s journey to understanding the body has been a gory one - littered with unethical experiments, unintended consequences and unimaginable endurance.

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins.

This is the story of Martha Milete, whose life changes forever one night in 2006 when two masked men break into her house where she lives with her fiancé and two children. She unfortunately gets shot, but that is only the beginning of her ordeal.

The moment she is wheeled into the ambulance she is automatically enrolled in an experiment involving her blood. One she would only find out about years later when speaking with Dr Harriet Washington, a medical ethicist and author of several books, including Carte Blanche: The Erosion of Medical Consent.

Julia and Adam hear from Dr Washington who has followed Martha’s story closely.

Presenters: Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw

An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins.

This is the story of patient B-19, a 24-year old who, in 1970, walks into a hospital in Louisiana troubled by the fact that the drugs he’s been abusing for the past three years are no longer having the desired effect. He claims he is “bored by everything” and is no longer getting a “kick” out of sex.

To Dr Robert Heath’s intrigue, B-19 has “never in his life experienced heterosexual relationships of any kind”. Somewhere along the way, during the consultations, the conclusion is drawn that B-19 would be happier if he wasn’t gay. And so they set about a process that involves having lots of wires sticking out of his brain. Julia and Adam hear from science journalist and author, Lone Frank, author of The Pleasure Shock: The Rise of Deep Brain Stimulation and Its Forgotten Inventor.

Presenters: Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw

An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw tell the story of Andemariam Beyene, an engineering student from Eritrea studying in Iceland. In 2011 he was desperate for a cure to the large tumour discovered in his trachea. He had tried surgery and radiotherapy and nothing had worked.

Dr Paolo Macchiarini, Karolinska Institute's star surgeon presents himself as Andemarian's best and last option. He proposes an experimental treatment - but one that has never been done before on a human being. Andemariam would be the first. Unfortunately, he agrees to it.

Julia and Adam speak with Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, a professor in cardiothoracic surgery at Uppsala University Hospital in Sweden, who was at Karolinska Institute during Paolo Macchiarini's tenure.

Presenters: Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw

An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4

This is the story of 12 year old Howard Dully. The year is 1960. His stepmother is finding him to be ‘unbelievably defiant’ so she takes him to a private California hospital. There he is evaluated by Dr Walter Freeman who diagnoses him with childhood schizophrenia.

For this he prescribes a brutal procedure which would alter Howard’s life forever - a lobotomy. Dr Freeman performed thousands of these operations across the United States, including on Rosemary Kennedy, JFK’s sister. Julia and Adam hear from Jack El-Hai, journalist, medical writer and author of The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness.

Presenters: Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw

An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4.

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads

This is the story of a 17 year old enslaved girl - Anarcha - and the other enslaved women who gave birth to the field of gynaecology. The year is 1845 and Anarcha has just had a baby. But there’s a problem. She is in great pain and her doctor, J Marion Sims, believes nothing can be done about it - at least at first.

She has developed a vesico-vaginal fistula, a hole between her bladder and her vagina. This leaves her incontinent and in the doctor’s words: “aside from death, this was about the worst accident that could have happened to the poor young girl”. In search of a cure Anarcha would be experimented on 30 times. Julia and Adam hear from Dr Deirdre Cooper Owens, a professor at the University of Connecticut and the author of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender and the Origins of American Gynaecology.

Presenters: Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw

An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4.

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the historic threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins.

This is the story of a farmer from the small town of Milford, Kansas. The year is 1916 and the town has a population of only 200. The farmer is looking for a cure to his failing libido, so one day he decides to walk into the town doctor’s office and ask for help with his ‘flat tire’.

The doctor, John R. Brinkley tells the farmer that he’d have no problem with his virility if he had the testicles of a goat. According to the legend, the farmer asks ‘Well, why don’t you put ‘em in?’. Soon after the operation, a second man comes to see Brinkley, a man by the name of Bill Stittsworth. And so starts a series of similar transplants across the United States, leading to hope, joy, suffering and ultimately, death for many of the men who went under the small-town doctor’s knife. In this episode Julia and Adam hear from Pope Brock, author of Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam.

Presenters: Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw

An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4.

Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins.

This is the story of 16 year old Lana Ponting. The year is 1958 and she has run away from home yet again. The police pick her up and a judge orders her to the infamous Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal, Canada.

There, she is met by Dr Ewen Cameron, a very famous psychiatrist. What neither Lana nor her parents knew is that Dr Cameron’s method of treatment was less than conventional and his work would soon attract the attention of the CIA and their mind control efforts. This is the story of Subproject 68 and MK Ultra. Julia and Adam hear from journalist John Marks, author of The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control. They also speak with Lana Ponting, one of the last living survivors of Dr Cameron's experiments at the Allen Institute.

Presenters: Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw

An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. With every episode they explore some of that dark history and ask - is our present day knowledge worth the suffering it took to get us here?

This is the story of the more than 600 patients at Vipeholm Hospital in Sweden who, in 1946, were enrolled in a set of unexpectedly dark studies now known as the ‘sugar experiments’.

They were devised and run by the Board of Medicine - without government knowledge or approval - and led to immeasurable pain for all those who took part, all in the name of public health.

Presenters: Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw

An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4

Humanity’s journey to understanding the body has been a gory one, littered with unethical experiments, unintended consequences and unimaginable endurance.

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. With every episode they explore some of that dark history and ask - is our present day knowledge worth the suffering it took to get us here?

The year is 1964 and 20 year old Edward Anthony is being checked into Philadelphia’s Holmesburg prison, also known as ‘The Terrordome’, about to serve a 23-month sentence for dealing marijuana.

Only two weeks into being at the prison he agrees to the first of many medical experiments run by Dr Albert Kligman and the University of Pennsylvania dermatology department. This first experiment, a 'bubble bath test', leaves him feeling like his back is on fire. To his cellmates he yells, ‘It’s killing me’. This is the story of Edward and hundreds of other prisoners who were exploited in this Philadelphia prison. in the pursuit of knowledge and for financial gain.

Presenters: Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw

An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4

Humanity’s journey to understanding the body has been a gory one; littered with unethical experiments, unintended consequences and unimaginable endurance. It’s the story of catastrophic failures, at great human cost - but also successes which made history and saved countless lives.

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. With every episode they explore some of that dark history and ask - is our present day knowledge worth the suffering it took to get us here?

This is the story of 18-year-old Alexis St Martin who is accidentally shot in the stomach outside an American Fur Company store. The year is 1822, and the French-Canadian fur trapper’s chances of survival aren’t high, but he defies the odds and lives.

Alexis heals in the most unusual way. His wound turns into a gastric fistula, a permanent hole in the side of his body - a hole that cannot be closed and one that leads straight into his stomach. The doctor who saves his life, William Beaumont, finds in the young man’s misfortune an opportunity.

Presenters: Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw

An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4