Donald Kellogg was just 10 months old when his parents began experimenting on him and Gua, a chimpanzee, to see if an animal could become more humane. Share this article Share this article Facebook X LinkedIn Reddit Bluesky Email Copy link Link copied Bookmark this Comment
Louella and Winthrop Niles Kellogg believed they could use their own child in a chilling experiment involving chimpanzees.
Baby Donald Kellogg was just 10 months old when he became one of the test subjects in a horrific and doomed study.
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The baby was in tears as his parents, Luella and Winthrop Niles, subjected him to the horrific ordeal.
The scientists' spouses were convinced that if they raised a chimpanzee alongside their own child, the animal would become more humane, but this had disastrous consequences.
According to the Mirror US , on June 26, 1931, the Kellogg family brought the chimpanzee Gua into their home.
The horrific experiment had to be stopped nine months later when Donald “became more like a monkey than a man.”
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His parents watched as Donald bit, crawled, and grunted like a chimpanzee.
Donald was put to sleep in the same bed as the chimpanzee, and his “brother and sister” were spoken to in the same way.
In one experiment, shots were fired to see who would react faster, Donald or Gua.
A boy and a chimpanzee were hit on the tops of their heads with spoons to determine how differently their skulls sounded.
The tests were conducted around the clock, and despite their abbreviation, they led Winthrop to publish his book, The Monkey and the Child: A Study of Environmental Influences on Early Behavior.
The Kelloggs were encouraged by Gua's progress, particularly physical, but found that she struggled to keep up with Donald intellectually once he began formulating words. Commenting on the conclusion of the experiment, the journal Psychological Review stated: “We were informed that the study was terminated on March 28, 1932, when Gua was returned to the Orange Park primate colony for gradual rehabilitation.”
“But as to the question 'why?' the Kelloggs, who are so precise on so many other points, leave the reader puzzled.”
They reflected on the abrupt end to the trials, adding: “First, the schedule the Kelloggs followed for nine months was so grueling that they might have abandoned the trials due to fatigue.”
Secondly, they may have wanted to use their remaining vacation time in Indiana to prepare the book manuscript for publication. Thirdly, Gua was maturing, gaining strength, and, according to Kellogg, becoming less predictable and more difficult to manage.
“Perhaps the Kellogg family feared that Gua might inadvertently harm Donald.”
Leul's mother reportedly became concerned that her son was becoming more chimpanzee-like than human-like, leading to the termination of the tests. However, for a time, life continued as usual: Winthrop earned a living studying bottlenose dolphins at Florida State University.
He died the same summer as his wife, in 1972, and their son tragically died just a year later at the age of 43, presumably by suicide. As for Gua, she was hospitalized after the experiment, but sadly, she died of pneumonia at the age of three just a year later.
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