THE MYSTERY OF THE CRUEL EXPERIMENT AGAINST DONALD & GUA
A human baby raised with chimpanzees "became more ape-like than human", before tragically taking his own life later in life. Animal psychologist Winthrop Niles Kellogg and his wife Luella conducted a strange experiment in the 1930s.
They raised a chimpanzee named Gua, along with their son Donald, as "brother and sister". However, the couple got a result that fell short of their expectations, when their son Donald ended up behaving more like an ape than a human.
Kellogg was fascinated by the idea of children being raised in the wild with little or no human assistance. He felt the best way to try to replicate that in reverse, was to bring the chimpanzee into his home. He knew leaving a human child in the wilderness was morally reprehensible. So instead, he chose to bring baby animals into modern society.
On June 26, 1931, the Kelloggs welcomed their new family, a baby chimpanzee named Gua, whom they would raise with their son, Donald. Gua was seven and a half months old and Donald was slightly older at 10 months when the experiment began.
The experiment was claimed to have been carried out in an attempt to see if the environment would influence the development of chimpanzees, and to what extent they could resemble humans.
For the next nine months, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, Kellogg and his faithful wife, both comparative psychologists, ran test after test on Donald and Gua.
Donald and Gua were raised in exactly the same way. They were both dressed in baby clothes, made to sit in a high chair, slept in bed, and were kissed goodnight, even though I was taken in a small carriage.
Gua was also treated according to what a parent would do when raising a baby girl. Meanwhile, Kellogg runs a series of tests on Gua and Donald.
He began examining "blood pressure, memory, body size, streak, reflexes, depth perception, vocalizations, locomotion, reactions to tickling, strength, manual dexterity.
Kellogg also tested problem-solving skills, fear, balance, play behavior, climbing, and obedience, grasping, language comprehension, attention span, etc.," note the authors of The Psychological Record, reports The Sun.
According to one report, Kellogg would tap Donald and Gua's heads with a spoon, to hear the difference in the sound of their skulls. He would also make loud noises to see who would react faster.
They even tried to convince Gua not to eat soap bubbles by putting a bar of soap product in his mouth. Scary footage from the experiment shows Gua and Donald being put on high chairs and spun around until they start crying.
They are also encouraged to complete cruel tests. Where they are put in a maze and forced out by changing obstacles around them.
For a while, Gua excelled in this practice compared to Donald. But after they were both one year old, things started to change. Gua's physical advantage is slowly being eclipsed by Donald's ability to formulate words. The doctors soon realized that they had reached the limits of the chimpanzee's intelligence.
The authors in The Psychological Record said Kelloggs' experiment "perhaps performed better than any study of its time, in demonstrating the limitations heredity placed on an organism. That was despite the environmental opportunities as well as the developmental advantages that can be made in a modern environment".
But the experiment suddenly ended for no reason, the publication said, adding: "Our final concern is why the project ended when it did." "We were only told that research was stopped on March 28, 1932, when Gua was returned to the primate colony of Orange Park through a gradual rehabilitation process.
The test was planned to run for five years, but the process was halted after only nine months. There were rumors as to why the test was canceled, including claims it happened because the Gua had become too powerful and might have been a danger to Donald.
Another theory is that they are simply exhausted from nine months of non-stop parenting and scientific work.
Gua shows no signs of learning human language. But Donald, on the other hand, began to imitate his chimpanzee voice. "In short, Donald's language retardation may have put an end to this research," write the authors of The Psychological Record.
What's more, OZY reports, Luella Kellogg is becoming increasingly worried that Donald is becoming more like a chimp than a human. Gua and Donald will wrestle in a more chimp-like fashion. I had even taught his “older brother” how to spy on people under the door.
Donald started biting people and crawling like his “sister.” He grunts and barks like he does when he wants more food.
Gua was later expelled and died of pneumonia just a year later at the age of 3. Meanwhile, not much is known about Donald. He later committed suicide at the age of 43, in 1973.
Kellogg continued to work at Florida State University where he conducted research on bottlenose dolphins and sonar until his retirement in 1963. He and his wife Luella both died in the summer of 1972.
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