Explanation: By the late 1930s/early 1940s, the National Dental Service of Sweden worried about the bad state of Swedish teeth. No one really knew what could be the cause of tooth decay, although some theories suggested that sugar could be the cause. To test this, a series of experiments were initiated on severely intellectually disabled (or as they were described back then: “hard-to-manage, uneducable and mentally dull”) people at the Vipeholm hospital outside of Lund. They tested different diets on different patients, in order to see how they affected tooth health.
After ruling out lack of vitamins and fatty diets, scientists began to test the sugar theory. They therefore fed the patients copious amounts of “Vipeholmstoffee”, up to 24 a day, every single day for two years (1947-1949). The toffees were meant to be extremely sticky, so that they couldn’t be swallowed as a whole – only chewed and sucked on. That way, sugar would coat every cavity of every tooth. The subjects were also not allowed to brush their teeth; nor to repair or pull out damaged teeth. By the end, many of the test subjects had complete damage to every single tooth.
At the time, the study was seen as a success. We had finally found the cause of tooth decay, and the people was therefore advised to only eat candy every Saturday (“Lördagsgodis”). Nowadays however, the study is infamous for being inhumane. The test subjects didn’t have any say whatsoever in whether they wanted to be a part of the study or not; not to mention the extraordinary pain the subjects must have suffered during the test.
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Explanation: By the late 1930s/early 1940s, the National Dental Service of Sweden worried about the bad state of Swedish teeth. No one really knew what could be the cause of tooth decay, although some theories suggested that sugar could be the cause. To test this, a series of experiments were initiated on severely intellectually disabled (or as they were described back then: “hard-to-manage, uneducable and mentally dull”) people at the Vipeholm hospital outside of Lund. They tested different diets on different patients, in order to see how they affected tooth health.
After ruling out lack of vitamins and fatty diets, scientists began to test the sugar theory. They therefore fed the patients copious amounts of “Vipeholmstoffee”, up to 24 a day, every single day for two years (1947-1949). The toffees were meant to be extremely sticky, so that they couldn’t be swallowed as a whole – only chewed and sucked on. That way, sugar would coat every cavity of every tooth. The subjects were also not allowed to brush their teeth; nor to repair or pull out damaged teeth. By the end, many of the test subjects had complete damage to every single tooth.
At the time, the study was seen as a success. We had finally found the cause of tooth decay, and the people was therefore advised to only eat candy every Saturday (“Lördagsgodis”). Nowadays however, the study is infamous for being inhumane. The test subjects didn’t have any say whatsoever in whether they wanted to be a part of the study or not; not to mention the extraordinary pain the subjects must have suffered during the test.