The Phillips Thygeson Experiment in Trachoma
In the 1930s Phillips Thygeson and his associates were performing experiments to prove that the elementary bodies from the Halberstaedter-Prowazek inclusions were the infectious agent of trachoma. Using epithelium scraped from the eyes of infected children, they produced an ultrafiltrate of elementary bodies which they inoculated into the eye of a human volunteer, Clarence Brown. Brown's left orbit had been exenterated due to advanced conjunctival epidermoid carcinoma, but the tumor had spread to his brain. Since he knew he was going to die, he volunteered to be inoculated in his remaining eye and developed a classic case of trachoma. Treatment (Read more...)