Bad Science Read online

  At the time, there were severe restrictions regarding dissections of human cadavers. The law stated that a school was only permitted to have one cadaver per year, and it had to be the body of a criminal who had been executed. Five hundred students in just one class, and only one corpse to go around! Naturally, this situation was quite frustrating to Knox and the other doctors trying to teach valuable lessons that could save lives. So, they decided to start a little “underground” trade in dead bodies.

  It seems there were certain people in the city who thought it was a great waste to leave perfectly good corpses in their graves. They realized there was a veritable post-mortem gold mine beneath the soil of Edinburgh’s cemeteries, so they started a profitable mining operation—although some more narrow-minded citizens viewed it as grave robbing.

  Always on the lookout for recent burials, these men skulked about cemeteries in the dead of night, exhuming the bodies of those who had just been put to rest in eternal peace—giving them a slight detour to a slab in a medical school to be cut up into little pieces beneath the curious eyes of hundreds of students. These “resurrectionists,” as they came to be known, would surreptitiously deliver the corpses to doctors who promised to pay good prices and ask no questions.

  Business was brisk, to the point where outraged local citizens began building walls around cemeteries to protect the graves of their loved ones. Such vigilance made it increasingly difficult for the resurrectionists to practice their trade, but two clever Irish immigrants, William Burke and William Hare, developed a different business strategy. In fact, the new plan actually made life much easier for them, and killed two birds with one stone, as it were. Why go to all the trouble and mess of digging up dirty corpses that had already begun to putrefy, when you could obtain fresh meat for the medical schools by simply creating your own corpses?

  It all began innocently enough, relatively speaking. One of Hare’s tenants in his boarding house had the nerve to die owing four pounds in rent. Irritated by this loss in income, Hare and Burke decided to conduct a funereal rearrangement for fun and profit. They removed the dead man from his coffin and substituted an equal weight in wood. After the phony funeral, they carried the corpse in a sack to the back door of Dr. Knox’s school and were thrilled to receive almost eight pounds!

  The lure of easy money then pushed Burke and Hare into more sinister methods of obtaining inventory. One of Hare’s tenants fell ill, so why let the poor man linger—and possibly recover, heaven forbid—when they could end his suffering and make another tidy profit? Plying the sick man with whiskey until he was in a stupor, Hare proceeded to pin him to the bed while Burke covered his nose and mouth. Unlike basic strangulation that produced telltale marks on the neck, this method of suffocation left no visible signs of violence, so they were able to deliver unmarked goods to the willing consumers. (This method of homicide later gave rise to the phrase to “burke” a victim.)

  The murders continued in a similar pattern—get the victim drunk and suffocate him or her (medical schools needed female corpses, too) and then deliver the bodies in a sack or barrel to Dr. Knox’s door. These serial killers practiced their trade with increasing boldness, and only after victim #16, were they apprehended. However, the authorities had little or no evidence with which to try the case, save the one body of #16, so remarkably, they offered William Hare his freedom if he would testify against Burke.

  In addition, both men’s wives had participated in the grisly crimes in some ways, yet they were not charged and received no punishment. For his testimony, Hare was released. William Burke paid for his crimes at the gallows on January 29, 1829, and fittingly, his body was given to the medical school for dissection. His skeleton remains on display at the school to this day. In another macabre twist, a student stole a piece of his skin and had it made into a wallet! (Payback is a bitch…)

  And what of Dr. Knox and the other noble men of medicine who paid for these suspiciously fresh corpses, knowing full well that foul play was somehow involved? With no hard evidence to prosecute, these educated elite of Edinburgh all got off scot-free. (Or should that be Scot-free?)

  This is perhaps the most inexcusable part of this gruesome serial murder case—doctors who had sworn an oath to do no harm or injustice, who had devoted their lives to healing the sick, had knowingly and eagerly accepted the bodies of innocent people who had been murdered for profit. Had they not paid Burke and Hare, there wouldn’t have been any murders. They were as responsible for these peoples’ deaths as if they had burked them all themselves.

  Bad Blood

  As modern surgery progresses, less invasive techniques are constantly being developed to minimize damage to surrounding tissue and limit the loss of blood. However, things were not always this way. In fact, for about 3,000 years it was quite the opposite—losing blood was considered to be a way to treat many ailments.

  Bloodletting was already in common practice by the 5th century BC, but probably began centuries earlier in Egypt. In addition to being ancient, it also appears to have been widespread in cultures across the globe. In its earliest forms, it’s believed that blood was spilled to release evil spirits out of the body—which was actually probably a lot safer and less dangerous than the practice of trephination, or cutting a hole in the skull to release god-knows-what.

  Eventually, the concept of evil spirit-based disease was superseded by a more “scientific” approach, and I do use that term very loosely. As was mentioned earlier in this chapter, in their favor, the ancient Greeks began observing patients for biological causes and effects, and felt that opposing forces were at work in the body. Hippocrates concluded that these forces were fluids, or humours, and if they were out of balance then a person would become ill.

  The four humours were said to be blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, and countless nasty practices for “purging” excess humours were developed over the centuries. Sparing the reader the details of the techniques involving both ends of the gastrointestinal tract, we shall focus on relieving the “plethora” of blood that apparently accompanied a variety of maladies.

  Does your daughter suffer from epilepsy? Then cut open a vein and drain a pint or two of blood from her little body. Does your wife have female troubles? Then slice a vein in her ankle and she won’t lose so much blood, except from her ankle, of course. How about your cousin’s various aches and pains? Well, when the proper signs of the zodiac are in the sky, the appropriate veins will be violated to remove all that offending blood from his system. And what about that infection spreading through your foot? Obviously, the best way to relieve the redness and swelling is to drain out so much blood your skin turns white. (Of course, after draining away most of your bacteria-fighting white blood cells, the infection will most likely run rampant and prove fatal. But at least you will present yourself at your funeral as a suitably pale corpse.)

  So who, then, in times past was qualified to do all this slicing and dicing? As the profession of physician in the Greek and Roman world disappeared into the dark ages, monks and priests took over the bloody procedures. However, in 1163 AD, Pope Alexander III decreed that the church would no longer allow its representatives to drain their parishioners’ blood. (Apparently, members of the clergy were to concentrate solely on draining their parishioners’ purses.)

  That left the field wide open for a group of men who wielded sharp instruments with great skill, at least with hair—the local barber. Was it such a stretch then, that the same man who inadvertently drew blood when he gave you a shave, would now get paid to cut you in earnest?

  The trade of the barber-surgeon flourished for hundreds of years (the official organization in England didn’t dissolve until 1744!). One of the most familiar sites in downtown USA traces its origins to this dubious profession. The red and white barber pole came into existence to let the townsfolk know that in addition to a haircut and a shave, the proprietor of that particular establishment would be happy to use his razor to slice open your vein and drain as muc
h blood as you desired. The red color obviously signified the blood, the white represented the bandage or tourniquet, and the pole itself symbolized the stick the patient would clench in his fist to pump up the vessels in his arm—much like making a fist today when giving blood.

  Everyone is smiling in this medieval image of bloodletting.

  Some barber-surgeons even went further out on a limb, so to speak, and offered to perform amputations. One can only imagine the results of such an operation being conducted on a patient with no anesthesia, in highly unsanitary conditions, with a razor that had just been used to lance an infected boil on another patient. It might have been more humane to slit the patient’s throat…

  The tools of the trade evolved over the centuries, from thorns and sharp sticks, to simple knives, to specially designed lancets, to spring-loaded devices that prevented the shaky practitioner from cutting too deep. Various bowls and cups were also designed to catch the vital fluid. Typically, at the point where the patient began to feel faint the procedure would end, which usually translated into relieving the body of one to four pints of blood. Of course, multiple bloodlettings were required to further weaken the victim—I mean cure the patient—if an adequate response was not obtained the first time.

  Perhaps the most infamous example of this deadly repeat performance is the case of America’s most beloved figure, George Washington. After coming down with a throat infection in 1799, his doctors decided that the best thing for him was to remove a few pints of blood. Then a few more. And a few more.

  It is believed that in a 24-hour period, these quacks extracted a whopping nine pints of blood from our first president. Considering an average adult male has only about fourteen to eighteen pints, it is no wonder that Washington died after most likely losing at least half of his blood. How ironic is it, that after surviving the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and the most dangerous foe of them all, the U.S. Congress, he was finally done in by his doctors!

  It’s generally agreed that by the late nineteenth century, the practice of bloodletting finally ended…or did it? Remarkably, a CNN report in 1998 revealed that people in India are still undergoing the procedure. They believe that losing their bad blood will cure everything from arthritis to cancer. Of course, as we have seen, if you drain enough blood it will cure everything—permanently!

  Unfortunately, the depth of human ignorance appears to equal the vast oceans of blood that have been spilled in vein (sorry, couldn’t help myself) across the centuries. How many lives were cut short because of bloodletting? It is astounding that it took thousands of years for this practice to be recognized for what it was—an expression of humour that was no laughing matter…

  If someone was very pale, they were fed red foods, or given pink or red medicine. In that same vein, so to speak, patients were given blood to drink, which seemed to work wonders and prove the belief that colors could cure. Of course, blood relieved the symptoms of anemia because of its iron content, but why spoil a good myth with science?

  “If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.

  W.C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954

  Lying About Your Age

  People have probably been lying about their ages since civilization began. Men and women have claimed to be younger to appear more attractive to the opposite sex. Teens have claimed to be older to join the army, drink, and appear more attractive to the opposite sex. It is not an act of Bad Science to lie about your age—unless you happen to be part of a medical study.

  In the Andes of Ecuador in 1970, scientists began studying the inhabitants of the small town of Vilcabamba. Many of the people of the town were supposedly quite elderly, but still vigorous and healthy, and the researchers wanted to see if there was any link between their diets, lower heart disease rates, and their remarkable longevity.

  However, they were unprepared for just how remarkable the claims of longevity were—of its 819 residents, 9 asserted that they were over 100 years old! That percentage of centenarians was 366 times greater than in the U.S. at the time. These people also weren’t just 100, or 101, or even 105. One man claimed to be 123, another 132, and several to be over 140, and they all still worked on their farms every day! Further research then discovered an additional 14 centenarians. These seemed to be impossible numbers, but a search of the town’s birth and baptismal records appeared to substantiate these claims.

  The “Shangri-La of the Andes” suddenly became a magnet for tourists and more researchers trying to discover the Fountain of Youth from which so many residents obviously drank. Articles and books were written about Vilcabamba’s “longevos” (very old people), and studies were conducted that concluded it was the charged mountain air, the constant exercise, the food, or all of the above that kept the people alive and well.

  While there was no doubt that there was a high percentage of elderly people in Vilcabamba, and that they were quite active in their golden years, all of the initial research failed to take into account one vital factor—the people were lying about their ages! It seems that in this town, it was something of a point of pride to reach old age, so people being people, they simply exaggerated how old they were. For example: in 1971, a man said he was 122, but just three years later, he reported that he was 134. Then there was the case of Miguel Carpio Mendieta who was 61 in 1944, but claimed to be 70. Five years later he said he was 80. In 1970, he was actually 87, but by then reported his age to be 121, and three years later declared himself to be 127!

  Vilcabamba, which translates as “Town Where Old People

  Lie Through What Few Teeth They Have Left.”

  In addition to the prevailing culture of age exaggeration, scientists had been fooled by the birth and baptismal records, because so many people had the same names. Researchers had mistaken people’s fathers, grandfathers, and other relatives’ records as those of their much younger descendants. Also, the reason that there was such a high percentage of elderly people in town was simply that the young people had moved away!

  After a more careful examination of the records and residents, it turned out that NO ONE in Vilcabamba was over 100 years of age! Further, in reality, the life expectancy was actually lower than in the U.S.!

  Despite all the evidence to the contrary, today Vilcabamba still proclaims itself to be in the “Valley of Longevity” where “years are added to your life…and life is added to your years!” Tourists still visit hoping to find the secret to long life, and they drink large quantities of the town’s spring water—just in case there really is some truth to it being a Fountain of Youth.

  Of course, people could just try to live healthy lifestyles regardless of where they reside, but why bother to go to all the trouble of personal responsibility for one’s health, when you can look for a quick fix by traveling to a remote town in the Andes?

  The Pen is Mightier than the Scalpel

  While great strides in surgical knowledge have allowed organ transplants to become commonplace, the battle for survival does not end with the operation. Organ rejection is the ever-present danger for the recipient, and the search still continues for a course of treatment to coax the body into acceptance, without significantly compromising its natural defenses.

  In 1973, Dr. William Summerlin of the prestigious Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, claimed to have invented the solution; literally, a solution which eliminated rejection. For his alleged discovery, Dr. Summerlin seemed destined to add his name to the annals of medical history. In actuality he was, but not quite in the manner he had hoped. There was one teeny-weeny little problem: Dr. Summerlin faked his experiments.

  The experiments he claimed to have conducted with his new solution involved transplanting pieces of skin from black mice to white mice. The white mice did indeed begin exhibiting black patches of skin with no signs of rejection. The results appeared remarkable.

  Of course, appearances can be deceiving. Many laboratories attempt
ed to reproduce Dr. Summerlin’s results, but every one failed. The problem with these other labs, as it turned out, was not a lack of the right medical techniques, but simply a lack of the right office supplies. Dr. Summerlin had cleverly chosen to claim to have transplanted the black skin to the white mice because his “surgery” did not involve a scalpel. His instrument of choice was a black felt-tip pen.

  The fraud was exposed one day when an assistant discovered the good doctor carefully coloring in patches of the white mice’s skin with the pen. For this outrageous act of deceit, Summerlin was suspended, but not fired (although he never returned to the Institute). And despite lying to colleagues, fabricating results, and coloring rodents without a license, he was actually allowed to continue to practice medicine!

  One cannot help wondering if his future patients became concerned as moles and freckles began appearing after their visits to the artistic doctor.

  When Good Scientists Go Bad

  It’s bad enough when people with questionable credentials perpetrate fraud or a hoax, but it is arguably even worse when good scientists go bad. But why should someone who is smart, educated, and talented travel down the road of Bad Science?

  Unless you have worked in a lab in a university, research facility, or in industry, you can’t fully appreciate the pressure that is applied to produce results. There is the pressure to publish papers, make new discoveries, make products that make money, and the need to constantly justify your position. All this pressure is too much for some people, and they succumb to the temptation to sidestep the rigors of true science and embrace the dark side of bogus results.