The Human Subject

Humanity's journey to understanding the body has been a gory one; littered with unethical experiments, unintended consequences and unimaginable endurance. It's the story of catastrophic failures, at great human cost - but also successes which made history and saved countless lives.

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Episodes

The Trauma Victims and their Blood

Humanity’s journey to understanding the body has been a gory one - littered with unethical experiments, unintended consequences and unimaginable endurance. In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. This is the story of Martha Milete, whose life changes forever one night in 2006 when two masked men break into her house where she lives with her fiancé and two children. She unfortunately gets shot, ...

Sep 15, 2024•29 min

The Gay Man and the Pleasure Shocks

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. This is the story of patient B-19, a 24-year old who, in 1970, walks into a hospital in Louisiana troubled by the fact that the drugs he’s been abusing for the past three years are no longer having the desired effect. He claims he is “bored by everything” and is no longer getting a “kick” out of sex. To Dr Robert Heath’s intrigue, B-19 has “never in his l...

Sep 08, 2024•28 min

The Man with an Artificial Windpipe

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw tell the story of Andemariam Beyene, an engineering student from Eritrea studying in Iceland. In 2011 he was desperate for a cure to the large tumour discovered in his trachea. He had tried surgery and radiotherapy and nothing had worked. Dr Paolo Macchiarini, Karolinska Institute's star surgeon presents himself as Andemarian's best and last option. He proposes an experimental treatment - but one that has never been done before on a huma...

Sep 01, 2024•28 min

The Boy with an Ice Pick in his Brain

This is the story of 12 year old Howard Dully. The year is 1960. His stepmother is finding him to be ‘unbelievably defiant’ so she takes him to a private California hospital. There he is evaluated by Dr Walter Freeman who diagnoses him with childhood schizophrenia. For this he prescribes a brutal procedure which would alter Howard’s life forever - a lobotomy. Dr Freeman performed thousands of these operations across the United States, including on Rosemary Kennedy, JFK’s sister. Julia and Adam h...

Aug 25, 2024•29 min

The Mothers of Gynaecology

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. This is the story of a 17 year old enslaved girl - Anarcha - and the other enslaved women who gave birth to the field of gynaecology. The year is 1845 and Anarcha has just had a baby. But there’s a problem. She is in great pain and her doctor, J Marion Sims, believes nothing can be done about it - at least at first. She has developed a vesico-vaginal fist...

Aug 17, 2024•28 min

The Farmers and The Goat Testicle Transplants

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the historic threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. This is the story of a farmer from the small town of Milford, Kansas. The year is 1916 and the town has a population of only 200. The farmer is looking for a cure to his failing libido, so one day he decides to walk into the town doctor’s office and ask for help with his ‘flat tire’. The doctor, John R. Brinkley tells the farmer that he’d have no...

Aug 11, 2024•28 min

The Woman Who Resisted Mind Control

Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. This is the story of 16 year old Lana Ponting. The year is 1958 and she has run away from home yet again. The police pick her up and a judge orders her to the infamous Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal, Canada. There, she is met by Dr Ewen Cameron, a very famous psychiatrist. What neither Lana nor her parents knew is that Dr Cameron’s method of treatment was less than conve...

Aug 04, 2024•29 min

The Children Whose Teeth Were Destroyed

In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. With every episode they explore some of that dark history and ask - is our present day knowledge worth the suffering it took to get us here? This is the story of the more than 600 patients at Vipeholm Hospital in Sweden who, in 1946, were enrolled in a set of unexpectedly dark studies now known as the ‘sugar experiments’. They were devised and run by the ...

Jul 29, 2024•29 min

The Prisoners Used for Their Skin

Humanity’s journey to understanding the body has been a gory one, littered with unethical experiments, unintended consequences and unimaginable endurance. In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. With every episode they explore some of that dark history and ask - is our present day knowledge worth the suffering it took to get us here? The year is 1964 and 20 year old Edward Anthony is being chec...

Jul 21, 2024•28 min

The Man with a Hole in His Stomach

Humanity’s journey to understanding the body has been a gory one; littered with unethical experiments, unintended consequences and unimaginable endurance. It’s the story of catastrophic failures, at great human cost - but also successes which made history and saved countless lives. In The Human Subject, Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Julia Shaw investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. With every episode they explore some of that dark history and ask - is our...

Jul 14, 2024•28 min

Introducing The Human Subject

Dr Adam Rutherford & Dr Julia Shaw investigate humanity’s journey to understand the body, revealing stories that are littered with unethical experiments and unimaginable endurance

Jul 05, 2024•4 min

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