23. Santorio Santorio
Santorio Santorio was a physician in the 16th century who became obsessed with the human body’s digestive system. He posed the question on whether or not what the body expelled through feces and urine, was equal to what was ingested. Therefore, he chose to use himself as a guinea pig for the next thirty years, weighing himself daily along with everything he ate and expelled on a daily basis.
In order to conduct his experiment, Santorio crafted a weighing chair that would weigh him, what he ate and his expulsions. He spent most of his life consumed by this experiment and finally concluded after three decades that what we ingest weighs more than what we expel. Talk about a commitment to science.