Editing Blinded experiment (section)

==History==
The first known blind experiment was conducted by the [[Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism|French Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism]] in 1784 to investigate the claims of [[animal magnetism|mesmerism]] as proposed by Charles d'Eslon, a former associate of [[Franz Mesmer]]. In the investigations, the researchers (physically) blindfolded mesmerists and asked them to identify objects that the experimenters had previously filled with "vital fluid". The subjects were unable to do so.{{cn|date=March 2023}}

In 1817, the first blind experiment recorded to have occurred outside of a scientific setting compared the musical quality of a [[Stradivarius]] violin to one with a guitar-like design. A violinist played each instrument while a committee of scientists and musicians listened from another room so as to avoid prejudice.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fétis |first=François-Joseph | name-list-style = vanc |year=1868|title=Biographie Universelle des Musiciens et Bibliographie Générale de la Musique, Tome 1|place=Paris|publisher=Firmin Didot Frères, Fils, et Cie|edition=Second|page=249|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UEMQAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA249|access-date=2011-07-21}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Dubourg |first=George | name-list-style = vanc |year=1852 |title=The Violin: Some Account of That Leading Instrument and its Most Eminent Professors...|edition=Fourth |place=London |publisher=Robert Cocks and Co |pages=[https://archive.org/details/violinsomeaccoun00duboiala/page/356 356]–357 |url=https://archive.org/details/violinsomeaccoun00duboiala |access-date=2011-07-21 }}</ref>

An early example of a double-blind protocol was the Nuremberg salt test of 1835 performed by Friedrich Wilhelm von Hoven, Nuremberg's highest-ranking public health official,<ref name=Stolberg>{{cite journal|date=December 2006|title=Inventing the randomized double-blind trial: the Nuremberg salt test of 1835 |journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine|doi=10.1177/014107680609901216|pmc=1676327|last1=Stolberg|first1=M.|volume=99|issue=12|pages=642–643|pmid=17139070}}</ref> as well as a close friend of [[Friedrich Schiller]].<ref>''Biographie Des Doctor Friedrich Wilhelm Von Hoven'' (1840), ISBN 1104040891</ref> This trial contested the effectiveness of [[homeopathy|homeopathic]] dilution.<ref name=Stolberg/>

In 1865, [[Claude Bernard]] published his ''Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine'', which advocated for the blinding of researchers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bernard |first=Claude |title=Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale |last2=Dagognet |first2=François |date=2008 |publisher=Flammarion |isbn=978-2-08-121793-5 |series=Champs |location=Paris}}</ref> Bernard's recommendation that an experiment's observer should not know the hypothesis being tested contrasted starkly with the prevalent [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]]-era attitude that scientific observation can only be objectively valid when undertaken by a well-educated, informed scientist.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Daston|first=Lorraine | name-list-style = vanc |title=Scientific Error and the Ethos of Belief|journal=Social Research|volume=72|number=1|year=2005|page=18|doi=10.1353/sor.2005.0016 |s2cid=141036212 }}</ref> The first study recorded to have a blinded researcher was conducted in 1907 by [[W. H. R. Rivers]] and H. N. Webber to investigate the effects of caffeine.<ref name="pmid16992882">{{cite journal | vauthors = Rivers WH, Webber HN | title = The action of caffeine on the capacity for muscular work | journal = The Journal of Physiology | volume = 36 | issue = 1 | pages = 33–47 | date = August 1907 | pmid = 16992882 | pmc = 1533733 | doi = 10.1113/jphysiol.1907.sp001215 }}</ref> The need to blind researchers became widely recognized in the mid-20th century.<ref>{{cite book |last=Alder |first=Ken | name-list-style = vanc |title=A Companion to Western Historical Thought|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zpPWwBS1C60C|year=2006|quote=Shortly after the start of the Cold War [...] double-blind reviews became the norm for conducting scientific medical research, as well as the means by which peers evaluated scholarship, both in science and in history. |series=Blackwell Companions to History|work=The History of Science, Or, an Oxymoronic Theory of Relativistic Objectivity|page=307|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|editor-last=Kramer|editor2-last=Maza|editor-first=Lloyd S.|editor2-first=Sarah C.|isbn=978-1-4051-4961-7|access-date=2012-02-11}}</ref>