Chapter 20 The ‘Untrammelled’ Scientist and the ‘Normal’ Volunteer: Some Reflections

Abstract

These reflections on Kenneth Mellanby’s idiosyncratic approach to research with human subjects have been provoked by a number of statements in the first (1945) edition of Human Guinea Pigs, some of which are amplified in the second (1973) edition. In the Preface to the first edition, Mellanby writes: “Some scientists feel there is no longer a place for the individual carrying out research in his own particular way…but I personally also think that scientific progress will be sorely stunted if there is no place for the individual to develop his own particular type of work” (Mellanby 1973, 7). He continues in the same vein in the next paragraph: “I hope there will always be a place, and funds, for the individual who wishes to work in his own way, untrammelled as much as possible by the “red-tape” which seems to be a necessary accompaniment of any large-scale organisation” (id.loc.).