Considerations in the protection of humans as subjects of research.

The histories of medicine, medical law, and medical research, all begin approximately 2,500 years before the dawning of the Christian era. In 1750 B.C. the Code of Hammurabi proclaimed that a physician who performed a new operation and caused the death of his patient should have his right arm removed. A little over a century later, Persian law repeated the penalty, but allowed the physician to go free if he had previously performed the operation on no less than three unbelievers. Although this undoubtedly made medicine safer for most Persian citizens, all worshipers of Zoroaster, it undoubtedly increased the risks for worshipers of other gods such as Baa1 and Moloch. Throughout subsequent history there have been repeated instances of the use of certain segments of the population as research subjects. In 1756, in England, during the reign of George II, six condemned criminals who had not had smallpox were forced to lend themselves to vaccination trials. Later, since these criminals were adults and vaccination was to be practiced on children, half a dozen “charity children” belonging to the St. James parish were experimentally inoculated, all without injury. Just a