If you're interested in other cases where people have self experimented and made a breakthrough, Roger Altounyan[1] is another fascinating case - he managed to discover sodium cromoglycate[2] was an effective treatment for Asthma.

Arthur Ransome also used him to name one of the characters in his book Swallows and Amazons.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Altounyan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromoglicic_acid