11. French dermatologist injected himself with discharge from Breast Cancer and lived to tell the tale to his children.
Jean-Louis-Marc Alibert did not begin studying medicine until he was 26 years old, but his contributions to research and study on cancer are extremely valuable to this day. In 1801, he was appointed general doctor to the Saint-Louis Hospital, where he administered to patients with skin disorders, syphilis and leprosy. Following the Restoration of the French monarchy, Alibert became a personal physician to France’s king, Louis XVIII. Later, he became the personal physician to another French king, Charles X, who gave him the title of “baron.” Despite the fame and honors he gained during his medical career, Alibert remained a dedicated doctor who wasn’t afraid to use his own body for scientific purposes.
One such instance occurred in 1808, when he injected himself with a type of discharge from breast cancer to see if cancer is contagious. The site of injection became inflamed, but did not develop cancer, which helped Alibert to conclude that cancer couldn’t be transmitted from one person to another. Ultimately, Alibert first classified dermatological disorders according to outer appearance, then he divided them into what he called families, genera and species. This system of classification was represented pictorially by him as the “Tree of Dermatoses”.