The Progress of Experiment

This book examines the science and the politics of drug evaluation. It presents the first general history of clinical research in the United States, examining therapeutic experiments over a wide range of diseases, from syphilis and pneumonia to heart disease and diabetes. It also explores the origins of our contemporary system for judging the drugs used in battling disease, and the history of the modern clinical trial.

Harry M. Marks shows that the story of modern pharmaceutical regulation is synonymous with the history of therapeutic reform - professional efforts to use science to reform the market. Accompanying this history of public policy is a detailed account of changing experimental ideals and practices. Marks outlines the history of therapeutic experimentation, from the "collective investigations" of the past century to the controlled clinical trial, which emerged after 1950 as the paradigm of scientific experimentation.