According to evidence examined by historian Allen Hornblum in his book Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison, large quantities of fungal organisms were applied to prisoners' skin. Between 1965 and 1966 Kligman conducted studies funded by the chemical company Dow to examine how the compound affected human skin. Another set of experiments involved the use of radioactive tracers to study how human skin renews itself. While an unarguably shameful episode in medical history, these controversies helped spur sweeping reforms in how medical research was conducted. Today the Holmesburg experiments are widely cited in bioethics literature as a warning of what can happen when scientific ambition outpaces ethical safeguards.
