Humans have always figured in scientific experimentation, but not always - or exclusively - in the role of investigators. They have also served as subjects and instruments, as well as investigatorsturned - subjects (in the case of self-experimentation). The many roles humans play in medico-scientific experiment, from the Renaissance to the mid-twentienth century, are the subject of Erika Dyck and Larry Stewart's edited volume. The ten contributors tackle topics as disparate as hermaphrodites, nutrition and eugenics, and showcase humans in a variety of experimental settings. They perform as intermediaries between investigators and such apparatus as galvanic gauges, pneumatic devices, radium therapy and anthropometric devices. Occasionally, humans are the apparatus - and the only ones capable of registering and interpreting desired experimental data.
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