Baby Raised With Chimp In Bizarre Experiment That Ended In Tragedy

The two formed a close bond, but the experiment had heartbreaking consequences.

In the 1930s, a bizarre experiment saw a 10-month-old human baby raised alongside a chimpanzee, an experiment that would end in tragedy.

Animal psychologists Winthrop Niles Kellogg and his wife, Luella, decided to raise their son, Donald, alongside a chimp named Gua.

At the time, Gua was just seven and a half months old when she joined the family.

The experiment, which many now describe as deeply unsettling, involved treating the two as siblings.

They wore baby clothes, sat in high chairs for meals, and even received kisses goodnight as if they were brother and sister.

Gua and Donald were raised as siblingsYouTube/AV Geeks

Winthrop reflected on the purpose of the study in his book, The Ape and the Child, writing: “What would be the nature of the resulting individual who had matured… without clothing, without human language and without association with others of its kind?”

For nine months, the Kelloggs conducted rigorous daily tests on both Donald and Gua, reportedly for hours each day.

Some of the tests were intense, including one where the pair were spun around in chairs until they began to cry.

In Adult Health and Early Life Adversity: Behind the Curtains of Maternal Care Research, Theodore Dumas explores the reasoning behind the study, writing: “The basic question was, is a chimp a chimp because it has chimp genes or because it is raised by other chimpanzees?”

“Thus, if baby Gua grew up to be very chimp-like in a human household, then genes win. However, if baby Gua grew up to be more human than chimp, then environment wins. As such, Gua was treated like Donald’s sister and underwent the same bathing, dressing, and feeding processes.”

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