Orphanages that were experimented on at St. Vincent’s, “Kitty Logan, an orphan child, into whose eye Tuberculin was instilled as a “test,” causing indescribable agony and long continued impairment of vision.”
News Article about the tuberculin experiments
Children at the St Vincent Orphanage that were experimented on
Orphanages that were experimented on at St. Vincent’s, “Kitty Logan, an orphan child, into whose eye Tuberculin was instilled as a “test,” causing indescribable agony and long continued impairment of vision.”
The 1908 Tuberculin Experiments at St. Vincent's Home for Orphans
In 1908, three Philadelphia physicians, Dr. Samuel McClintock Hamill, Dr. Howard Carpenter, and Dr. Thomas Cope, who were associated with the University of Pennsylvania, ran experiments on children living at St. Vincent's Home for Orphans in Philadelphia. They were testing tuberculin, an extract used to detect tuberculosis infection. Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by bacteria that most often affects the lungs, spreading through the air when infected individuals cough, sneeze, or spit. The physicians applied tuberculin directly to the eyes of the children to observe their reactions. This caused serious inflammation and lesions, and some children lost their vision as a result. At St. Vincent's, the population was approximately 400, composed of foundlings, orphans, and destitute children. In total, 160 healthy children under the age of eight and 17 infants were subjected to tuberculin testing.
While tuberculosis was a major public health crisis at the time, and the stated goal of improving diagnostic methods for children may have appeared reasonable on its surface, the methods employed reveal how little regard these researchers had for their subjects. The physicians were fully aware of the children's discomfort and openly documented it, knowing these tests would likely cause permanent eye damage. In one particularly harrowing case, the doctors recorded the following: "After the tuberculin was placed in her eye, the lid became swollen to large proportions and fell halfway down her cheek. This enormous lid, covering the entire eye, under which pus continued to gather, taxed to the utmost the skill of the physicians.... It seemed impossible to relieve the little one." Orphans in institutional care were regarded as convenient research subjects precisely because they had no one to advocate for them. They were vulnerable, controlled by the institution, and researchers took full advantage of that.
The tuberculin experiments at St. Vincent's belong to a broader pattern in American medical history in which people in institutional care, orphans, prisoners, and individuals with disabilities were treated as less than full human beings. Researchers consistently targeted those who could not refuse, justified their actions through scientific aims, and faced little to no accountability afterward. What makes cases like St. Vincent's particularly unsettling is that these were credentialed physicians operating well within the medical establishment of their time, which is precisely what makes their conduct so disturbing and so important to remember.
References
Lederer, S. (1992). Orphans as Guinea Pigs . https://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/rothman/COL476I1006.pdf
Shibboleth Authentication Request. (2026). Utsa.edu. https://login.libweb.lib.utsa.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/hospital-tests-on-orphans/docview/97118442/se-2
Wittenstein, V. O. (2014). For the good of mankind? : the shameful history of human medical experimentation. Twenty-First Century Books.https://dokumen.pub/for-the-good-of-mankind-the-shameful-history-of-human-medical-experimentation-9781467706599-9781467716611-2012043413.html
World Health Organization. (2025, March 14). Tuberculosis. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis