A paper about James McKeen Cattell's (the creator of the modern incarnation of Science) self-experimented with drugs like tobacco, cannabis and ether to determine their psychological properties in the 1880s.
Abtract: When the psychologist James McKeen Cattell was in graduate school, he took drugs like cannabis, opium and caffeine to investigate their effects on human psychology. This article explores Cattell's self experiments and why he never published this work. Some might see self experimentation with drugs as pleasure seeking masquerading as science, but Cattell and other contemporary psychologists thought it was a serious endeavor that could reveal important truths about the human mind. However, Cattell's tendency to overindulge in drugs beyond the limits he planned for his experiments did interfere with his desire to adhere to the epistemic virtues of scientific psychology, which dictated experiments should be carefully controlled and replicable. While this violation of epistemic virtue bothered Cattell, personal moral concerns about the ethics of drug taking were the primary factor that drove him to abandon his work on drugs. In the conclusion, I show how similar personal concerns among other researchers prevented drugs from becoming a major topic of research in the early days of experimental psychology, despite the fascination they held for many pioneers in the field. I examine how personal factors can be a constraining force on the practice of science, particularly in cases of self experimentation where scientists use their own bodies as tools for making knowledge.
A article published in History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals about how inhaling nitrous oxide and ether was a form of both recreational drug use and chemical education at early 19th century medical schools.
Abstract: In the early nineteenth century, chemistry professors in the United States and England frequently held classroom "frolics," where they gave their students nitrous oxide and ether to inhale so they could experience their intoxicating effects. It is well known that many of the people who claimed to have discovered anesthesia first learned about nitrous oxide and ether through frolics. However, frolics, themselves, are much less studied. I show that frolics were a textbook example of a new form of science pedagogy that sought to teach students about nature through classroom demonstrations that appealed to their senses.1 I also show that the frolic was a highly gendered practice. Women were generally barred from frolics because nitrous oxide and ether were thought to upset their delicate nervous systems and make them act indecorously. Conversely, the risks inherent in inhaling nitrous oxide and ether made frolics an opportunity for men to prove their bravery and perform their masculinity. I close by discussing how the frolic contributed to the discovery of anesthesia. This article makes novel contributions to the histories of chemical pedagogy, recreational drug use, gender, and sexuality.
Funding for this project was provided by the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy PhD Research Support Grant.
A talk I gave at the 2025 Psychedelic Intersections Conference at the Harvard Divinity School.
The paper based on this talk has been published in an anthology based on the conference. It is available here.
