The Progress of Experiment
Science and Therapeutic Reform in the United States, 1900–1990

Explores the origins of contemporary drug regulation and the modern clinical trial.

Harry M. Marks (Author)

9780521581424, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 April 1997

272 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.57 kg

'The Progress of Experiment is a book rich in empirical detail, all meticulously documented in long footnotes. … this book makes for interesting reading for anybody interested in arriving at a historically based judgement on the potential scope and limits of evidence-based medicine. With its detailed, well-researched case studies it will also provide good course reading. It is laudable that the paperback edition makes this book available to a wider group of potential readers.' The British Society for the History of Science

How do we evaluate the safety and benefit of new drugs? What tasks do we hold the government responsible for and which ones do we leave to the medical profession? Harry Marks explores the origins of our contemporary system of drug regulation and the modern clinical trial. He shows that the story of modern drug regulation is synonymous with the history of therapeutic reform. Accompanying this history of public policy is a detailed account of changing experimental ideal and practices. Marks follows the history of therapeutic experimentation, from the 'collective investigations' of the last century to the controlled clinical trial which emerged after 1950 as the paradigm of scientific experimentation. The result is the first general history of clinical research in the United States, a book which examines therapeutic experiments in a wide range of diseases, from syphilis and pneumonia to heart disease and diabetes.

Part I. Of Institutions and Character: The Era of Organisational Reform: 1. A rational therapeutics
2. Memories of underdevelopment: therapeutic research in the US 1900–1935
3. Playing it safe: the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938
4. War and Peace
Part II. Of Statistics and Institutions, or the Triumph of Method: 5. Managing chance
6. You gotta have heart
7. Anatomy of a controversy: the University Group Diabetes Program study
8. The dreams of reason.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX]