Barry Marshall took a very risky decision to win the Nobel Prize
Barry Marshall, an eminent Australian physician and scientist, had been conducting research on the Helicobacter pylori bacteria at the Freemantle Hospital and Royal Perth Hospital (both in Australia) for a very long time. After his painstaking research, he was fully convinced that this bacteria causes stomach ulcers, but no one believed him.It was illegal to test his theory on humans, so he was forced to take a very risky decision. Marshall himself drank a broth containing cultured H. pylori, expecting to develop an ulcer. He was surprised when only after three days he developed vague nausea and halitosis. After repeated endoscopy it was found that the bacteria colonised his stomach. Marshall began to take antibiotics. Ultimately he recovered. This experiment was published in 1985 in the Medical Journal of Australia.
For this very risky experiment on himself, Barry Marshall was awarded Nobel Prize for medicine in the year 2005.