The Courage to Swallow the Truth

In 1984, an Australian physician named Barry Marshall did something his colleagues considered reckless, perhaps absurd. He believed stomach ulcers — long blamed on stress, spicy food, and the pressures of modern life — were actually caused by a spiral-shaped bacterium called Helicobacter pylori. The medical establishment wasn't convinced. His papers were rejected. His theory was ridiculed.

So Marshall did what few scientists would dare: he drank a petri dish of H. pylori bacteria to prove his point.

Within days, he developed the painful inflammation of gastritis. He documented the symptoms carefully, then treated himself with antibiotics and recovered. He had proven his case at personal risk, using his own body as the evidence.

In 2005, Marshall and his colleague Robin Warren received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.