Self-experimenters in medicine: heroes or fools? Part II. Anesthesia, surgery, therapeutics, vaccinations, and vitamin C.

Self-experimentation has helped to transform various medical fields. The first part of this 2-part series examined how various physicians and scientists, in their willingness to experiment on themselves, contributed to the knowledge of various pathogenic microorganisms and hence to the expansion of the field of infectious disease.1 This second and concluding essay will focus on how other self-experimenters would forever change and advance the realms of anesthesia, surgery, therapeutics, vaccinations, and vitamin C.