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Comedian John Tothill has spoken about his experience of contracting malaria for a drug trial to raise money for his Edinburgh Fringe shows.
Anti-malaria drug trials can command a hefty salary: an advert currently posted on the Oxford Vaccine Group website claims participants will receive up to £9,100 for their time.
But although Tothill had expected to have only a mild case of the disease, he ended up experiencing hallucinations and extreme fever.
In an opinion piece for The timesTothill, 27, wrote about how, two years ago, she had stumbled upon the medical trial when trying to finance her upcoming show at the Edinburgh Fringe: Thank God this lasts forever.
Calculating that living in the city for that month would cost around £9,000, he decided to sign up as a participant.
Although his high white blood cell count meant he was rejected from FluCamp, Tothill was eligible for more rigorous testing, one of which was a “malaria camp.”
The plan was for Tothill to contract the disease and for his malaria count to reach 500 parasites per millilitre of blood. Then, “they would give him some pills, he would make a full recovery and go on his way a rich man.”
Instead, after two weeks of feeling fine and having a count of zero, on day 14 of the trial he suddenly started feeling very sick.
He wrote: “The doctors took blood tests and revealed (as I feverishly recall), half nervously and half delightedly, that my malaria count was 28,000. ‘You’ll be fine,’ the doctor smiled. ‘But you’re going to feel pretty bad.’”
Tothill said the word “pretty awful” was an understatement, recalling how he had suffered from “the Genghis Khan of fevers”.
“I began having strange nightmares that turned into hallucinations while I was awake. Like any good Catholic, mine consisted mainly of being dragged to hell by the devil as punishment for having made such a Faustian pact,” he said.
She continued: “The only times I sat up was to take my medication, which I took with Coca-Cola, in my hospital bed… Oddly enough, the physical pain – those sharp, stabbing sensations in my joints – was somewhat offset by the security of knowing exactly what was wrong with me and the fact that it had been my choice. It’s a peculiar way of experiencing illness.”
Fortunately, after five days of treatment, the comedian began to feel much better. “Where would scientists be without underemployed creatives?” he wrote.
“It’s a question that is probably asked about as often as it should be. But to be honest, it was a real privilege to play a tiny role in developing new treatments for a disease that, astonishingly, may have killed half of all human beings who have ever lived.
“Much more importantly, I imagine it was a once-in-a-lifetime privilege for those scientists to have played a much larger role in helping me bring my comedy show to the Edinburgh Fringe this year.”
Tothill will perform Thank God this lasts forever at the Edinburgh Fringe, 31 July – 25 August, Pleasance Theatre.
