Throughout history, it is not difficult to imagine a “mad scientist”—a concept that has been fictionalized through literary works like “Frankenstein” and blockbuster films like “Back to the Future.” This term refers to individuals who are unafraid to explore the darker sides of science to achieve their research goals.
Mad Scientists and Their “Horrific” Experiments
1. Sidney Gottlieb
Sidney Gottlieb was a master of poisons and their applications.
Sidney Gottlieb is one of the few scientists known as a “mad scientist,” with a bizarre fascination for researching lethal toxins and frequently inventing ways to apply them in practice.
His talents were embraced and fostered by intelligence agencies. He developed lethal pills for CIA agents to use for suicide if captured, causing painless death within just 10 seconds. However, to assess the effectiveness of these poisons, Gottlieb secretly conducted experiments on humans multiple times.
While media reports suggest that Gottlieb targeted pickpockets and drug addicts, rumors circulated that he once covertly persuaded an entire town to use this poison without informing them of the truth.
2. Harry Harlow
Harry Harlow used Rhesus monkeys for many controversial experiments.
Animal experimentation may have led to some significant breakthroughs in science, but it is also challenging to draw the line between necessity and cruelty.
American psychologist Harry Harlow used Rhesus monkeys (a species primarily found in Asia) to study the effects of isolation and loneliness. He captured infant monkeys, separated them from their mothers, and confined them in a cage known as the “pit of despair,” then evaluated their reactions during development, from personality to physicality.
Through his research, Harlow hoped to apply treatment methods in child development and depression.
3. Vladimir Demikhov
The experiment of transplanting the head of two dogs ended terribly.
The idea of “symbiosis”—the existence of two individuals on one body—has long fascinated scientists. However, it can lead to some crazy experiments.
Russian surgeon Vladimir Demikhov attempted to create a two-headed dog by transplanting the upper half of a puppy onto the neck of an adult German Shepherd.
The absurdity of this experiment made it one of the worst recorded in history. Needless to say, both dogs died because their tissues rejected the “new part.”
4. Giovanni Aldini
Giovanni Aldini aimed to resurrect the dead using science to achieve desired results.
Death was a mystery in science for a long time. Some inventors were so obsessed with this that they sought to resurrect the dead through scientific means.
In 1803, Italian scientist Giovanni Aldini claimed that he could resurrect the corpse of George Foster—a previously executed murderer—simply by using electricity generated from a Voltaic pile.
The crazy experiment was conducted. After attaching the electrodes of the battery to Foster’s head, his jaw began to tremble, his cheek muscles contracted, and his eyes opened. It felt as if Foster had truly come back to life. Some observers fainted from shock watching the experiment.
However, the facial muscles of the executed criminal were stimulated by the electrical current, creating the illusion that he was reviving, whereas there was no actual “resurrection of the dead” by electricity.
5. Shiro Ishii
Shiro Ishii was responsible for a series of inhumane experiments conducted on human bodies.
When it comes to mad experiments, no one is more infamous than Shiro Ishii—a microbiologist who was the director of Unit 731, a notorious biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army.
In the 1930s, he established a secret research facility where approximately 1,000 prisoners were held for the development and application of biological weapons. Unit 731 viewed their victims as “Maruta,” which means logs, to conduct inhumane experiments.
Many “horrific” punishments were administered at this facility, such as forced pregnancies, frostbite through anesthesia, and surgeries without anesthesia. Additionally, prisoners were subjected to a series of brutal experiments, including sun exposure, immersion in freezing water, starvation, and electric torture, to help Ishii determine the “limits” of the human body.
However, Ishii and those involved successfully negotiated immunity from prosecution for war crimes in Japan in 1946 before the Tokyo tribunal in exchange for full disclosure of their research findings.
