5. Setting a Homosexual Man Straight
After looking at research done by James Olds and Peter Milner regarding the septal regions of the brain, Robert Heath decided to take the information from the previous experiment and conduct his own by adding his own twist. Olds and Milner discovered that sensations of sexual arousal and pleasure are produced when the septal region of the brain is stimulated. During the 1950’s, Heath decided to try the experiment on men, instead of rats- but most importantly homosexual men. Heath aimed to test to see if he could stimulate these areas of the brain in order to turn a gay man straight. He placed electrodes into the septal region of the homosexual male’s brain and controlled the amount of applied stimulation. He then created a device that allowed the subject to “pleasure” himself, which was known as the “pleasure button.” In one session lasting three hours, the subject pressed the button 1500 times. With his libido skyrocketing, the subject was then introduced to a female prostitute. At first nothing happened, but when the prostitute offered to engage in sexual activity, the subject agreed. Not much is known of the subject after the experiments, except he became active in homosexual prostitution, but also possibly had an affair with a married woman.
What’d We Learn
A little pleasure goes a long way in this experiment. In the end, while the experiment may have been seen as a success, Heath wasn’t fully able to convert the homosexual subject into a heterosexual. I’m not sure the experiment provided a lot of new information to scientists.
4. What Face Would You Make While Decapitating a Rat?
We all know about facial expressions. A smile usually means one is happy, a frown indicates one is sad, and so on. However, in 1924, Carney Landis wanted to test the theory and find out if there is one special expression that is universal to everyone that is made when one experiences shock or disgust. Because he was fresh out of college with a psychology degree, Landis’ subjects for his experiment were fellow college students that he had known. In order to get accurate readings of the facial expressions, Landis used paint on his subject’s faces. The experiment started off normal; he’d have subjects smell ammonia, put their hand into a bucket of frogs with slime, or flash pornographic pictures at them. While this type of stimuli seems normal for an experiment about shock and disgust, this wasn’t the end of it. To conclude his experiment, Landis would hand his subject a knife and a live rat, and tell them to decapitate it. If the subject refused, Landis would decapitate the rat himself.
What’d We Learn
From his studies, Landis noted that his subjects, when in a hurry or feeling some sort of distress, did a “clumsy” job at decapitating the rat. However, Landis was never able to successfully match a facial expression to an emotion, therefore making his experiment not so successful. However, many look at his experiment and think of Stanley Milgram, as it is very shocking to see how his subjects, at least some of them, were willing to follow out such an absurd act, showing some sort of obedience.
3. Electrifying a Human Corpse
As if keeping a head alive wasn’t enough, Aldini Galvini decided to attempt to shock life into a human corpse after he realized that electricity, in high enough volts, was able to cause a dead corpse’s limbs to twitch (thanks to his uncle Luigi Galvini’s studies). Animals weren’t good enough for this experiment, so on January 17, 1803 George Forster was the victim, a recently executed murderer. To begin, the body was laid out and wires were placed on various places of the body, all which transmitted 120-volts of electricity. By placing the wires on the mouth and ears, Galvini noted that the jaw muscles moved and his entire face seemed to be in pain. His left eye is also said to have opened. As if the experiment couldn’t get any worse, Galvini decided to wrap it up by putting a wire on the ear and sticking the other in Forster’s rectum. According to those watching, his body “was on the eve of being restored to life.”
What’d We Learn
While we don’t exactly know how to bring a dead corpse back to live, we did learn that a high amount of voltage introduced to the body will make it move, more so jerk. While the experiment wasn’t the most enlightening, both Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe used the experiment ideas as inspiration for writing.
2. A Remote-Controlled Bull
We’ve heard of a remote-controlled car, and maybe even a remote-controlled airplane, but a remote-controlled bull? While it seems completely impossible, Jose Delgado was able to entirely control a bull with the press of a button in 1963. In order to control the bull’s actions, a chip, known as a stimpceiver, was implanted into his brain and was controlled by the remote Delgado held. The remote was able to electrically stimulate different parts of the brain, which control different actions and behaviors. To prove it a success, Delgado stood in a typical bull-fighting ring, and once the bull saw him, it began to charge, but with the press of the button, the bull immediately became uninterested and just walked away. Because of his experiment, scientists all over during the 1970s and even the 1980s did heavy research into electrical stimulation of the brain and attempted to find ways to control a person’s mind.
What’d We Learn
If you really want to control something or someone, just find an ethical way to implant a chip in their brain and voila. While it may seem crazy, there have been many studies recently regarding electrical brain stimulation, and researchers have been able to create remote-controlled anything, including sharks and pigeons.
1. Dying Heartbeat
Sometimes people really make you wonder, and this scientific experiment does just that. On October 31, 1938, John Deering sat down and willingly put his life in the hands of another. He had volunteered to participate in an experiment that would kill him, and seemed to be okay with it due to the fact that he was due to be executed anyhow. The experiment was conducted by Stephen Besley. A prison guard put a black hood on Deering to cover his head and placed a target on his chest. The prison guard would be the one to fire the shot, but beforehand, an electrocardiogram was connected to Deering’s chest in order to read his hearts beats. Before being shot, his heart was racing at 120 beats per minute. Once he heard the okay to fire, his heart raced to 180 beats per minute. He was then shot 4 times, one bullet piercing the right side of his heart. According to the electrocardiogram, his heart went into a spastic rhythm for about 4 seconds and then 15.4 seconds later, his heart stopped.
What’d We Learn
A bullet to the heart kills you. Also that when you’re about to die with a gun aimed at your chest, you’re more than likely to be deathly (no pun intended) afraid. After the experiment, a press was given in which Dr. Besley said, “he put on a good front. The electrocardiograph film shows his bold demeanor hid the actual emotions pounding within him. He was scared to death.”
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