istrict of Columbia and in the Territories and
Dependencies of the United States.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled:

SECTION 1. That hereafter no person shall make upon any human being
any scientific, medical or surgical experiment or operation, EXCEPT
FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PERSON EXPERIMENTED UPON, unless the
intelligent, personal consent of such latter person shall previously
have been obtained. Every such consent, to be valid, must be in
writing and must be preceded by a full and correct written statement
setting forth to the person whose consent is sought whatever painful,
injurious or dangerous consequences are obviously liable to result
from the proposed experimentation, and such statement shall be signed
both by the experimenter and the person to be experimented upon.

SECTION 2. That experiments or operation of this nature shall be
undertaken only by one of the responsible head-physicians or surgeons
of some hospital or public instiution or by his special written
authorization; provided only that nothing herein contained shall apply
to scientific investigations incapable of causing injury, made by
direction of authorities in charge of any institution of learning,
upon students, with their consent, for the purpose of testing
acuteness of mental action, or for the purpose of investigating other
mental or physical phenomena.

SECTION 3. That no scientific, medical or surgical experiment of any
kind, liable to cause pain or distress or injury to health or danger
to life, shall be permissible under any circumstances upon any
new-born babe, or upon any infirm or aged or feeble-minded person, or
upon anyone whose mental faculties are impaired, either temporarily or
permanently, or upon any woman during pregnancy or within a year after
her confinement, or upon any child under fifteen years of age, unless
it be undertaken for the sole benefit of the person to be experimented
upon; and the consent of any such person to any such experiment or
operation shall not constitute such legal consent as is required by
this act, but shall be null and void.

SECTION 4. That the responsible head of any hospital or public
institution, in which any experiment or operation of any kinds
mentioned in Section 1 of this Act shall have been made, shall on or
before the first day of February in each year make a written report,
attested by oath, to the Commis