Hideyo Noguchi - Human Experimentation

Human Experimentation

In 1911 and 1912 at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City, Noguchi was working to develop a syphilis skin test similar to the tuberculin skin test. The subjects were recruited from clinics and hospitals in New York. In the experiment, Noguchi injected an extract of syphilis called luetin under the subjects' upper arm skin. Skin reactions varied among healthy subjects and syphilis patients by the disease's stage and its treatment. Of the 571 subjects, 315 had syphilis. The remaining subjects were "controls" who did not have syphilis and were orphans or hospital patients. The hospital patients had nonsyphilitic diseases, such as malaria, leprosy, tuberculosis, and pneumonia. Finally, of the controls, were normal individuals, mostly children between the ages of 2 and 18 years. Critics at the time noted that Noguchi violated the rights of orphans and hospital patients.

In Noguchi's defense, Rockefeller Institute business manager Jerome D. Greene wrote a letter to the anti-vivisection society which had protested the experiment. Greene pointed out that Noguchi had tested the extract on himself before administering it to subjects, and his fellow researchers had done the same. Nevertheless, in May 1912 the New York Society for the Prevention for Cruelty to Children asked the New York district attorney to press charges against Noguchi; he declined.