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Human tests—called clinical trials—are the gauntlet of drug development , and have three phases
What does "gauntlet" mean in the above context?
"throw down the gauntlet" is an idiom "to issue a challenge" where gauntlet refers to a type of glove. In the above extract the word gauntlet alone has been used as a noun, what does it mean there?
Two separate words, although they're spelled and pronounced the same. The first "gauntlet" comes to us through the French for glove, and it refers to hand armor. Go here for pictures. Tossing one's glove before an opponent was a challenge to fight, thus the idiom meaning to challenge. The second "gauntlet" was originally "gantlope," which comes from the Swedish gatlopp, literally "gate passage" and refers to a punishment of forcing someone to run between two lines of people who struck the unfortunate runner. Thus the word's use as a trial or ordeal. The OED suggests that the word entered English during the Thirty Years War and lost its pronunciation to the first gauntlet.
To makes things worse, there's also the word "gantlet," which is the configuration of two railroad lines that have to share a narrow passage. Go here for a diagram and here for a picture.
The reference is to running the gauntlet, originally a form of punishment where the individual was made to run between two rows of soldiers who would punch and beat him as he ran, but now more often taken to refer to a stressful and reasonably protracted period of tests or exercises.
The gauntlet of drug development is a use of "Running the gauntlet."
From: https://american-history.net/native-america/native-american-life/native-american-rituals/ ‘Run the gauntlet’ has become a well-known phrase today. This phrase is actually inspired from the Native American ritual of ‘Gauntlet’.
Gauntlet is a ritual which was performed to punish the guilty member of a tribe for some crime he or she had committed. In this ritual, two rows of warriors stood facing each other and holding sticks.
The guilty person had to run between the rows. As he or she ran, the warriors on both sides whipped the person with sticks as punishment for their crimes. End of reference.
There was also a tradition of American Indians using a milder form of the process to initiate a new member, perhaps even captured, into the tribe. Beating them as they ran the length of the row was to get out any and all the anger or resistance the members had to the new individual. When they completed the challenge they were helped and injuries looked after as they were now part of the group. Still looking for reference.
I think "gauntlet" here carries the sense of a tool/means to achieving a desired end (i.e. drug development here). The author's statement isn't neutral or benign; "gauntlet" packs a pejorative connotation, because a gauntlet is not some fuzzy wool glove keeping you warm, but part of knight's armor to stay protected in combat and deliver punishment. So this word choice evokes a scenario of combat/punishment and seems to frame clinical testing as a (violent) manipulation of its human objects.
