Institutionalized Children - The Medical Community's Guinea Pigs of Choice during the 20th Century

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Allen Hornblum

Allen Hornblum an author and public lecturer.  He has served as the Chief-of-Staff in the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office, the Pennsylvania Crime Commission, and the Philadelphia Prison System. In addition to writing several books, such as Acres of Skin, Confessions of a Second Story Man, and the forthcoming Against Their Will, he has presented before a cross-section of organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, Institute of Medicine and a host of medical schools.

Institutionalized Children - The Medical Community's Guinea Pigs of Choice during the 20th Century

 Though often cited as our most precious resource and dearest commodity, children – particularly those institutionalized in orphanages, mental asylums, and warehouses for the “feebleminded” – were often sought out by physicians and medical researchers as test subjects for experimentation. Even a cursory examination of 20^th century medical research will illuminate numerous examples of children – some only days old – being incorporated in a wide range of medical research. Many prominent investigators in search of practical treatments and vaccines, exploring the impact of radiation and psychotropic drugs, or new surgical procedures like lobotomy, routinely found their way to poorly funded and under-staffed state institutions housing the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.

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