Inhumane: The Nazi Medical Experiments In America

During the holocaust prisoners of concentration camps were faced with evil, torture and death every day. Some of the prisoners in these camps were selected for Nazi medical experiments. Nazi doctors performed several different human experiments on prisoners throughout the Holocaust. A specifically horrific experiment was the twin experiments. This experiment was performed by Dr. Joseph Mengele and several of his assistants in Auschwitz. He is known for performing some of the most inhumane experiments during the holocaust.

The art of medicine and curing diseases was not always approached in a scientific way. In fact, many advances occurred between 1919 to 1939, after technological advances allowed scientists to apply the scientific method to medical research. At this time, the ethics of using patients as test subjects either for new medicines or as samples for further testing were not considered. An extreme example of this was the Nazi’s using concentration camp inmates – including children – to run painful and invasive experiments. More modern examples are not so easy to identify as unethical, however. While amputating a leg to develop methods to deal with fractures and war wounds is obviously unethical, harvesting cells to develop a vaccine is not so clear cut, as the disadvantage to the patient is hard to identify. Coming from the various Nazi testing and especially the Nuremberg testing and trials, another code of ethics was developed, called the Nuremberg Code.

Did you know the Nazis have been doing research on diseases? In the book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Skloot explains how the Nazis are associated with using prisoners to do research on diseases.

The chapter on Nazi medical experiments in Chalmers’ book is one of the most fascinating chapters because it examines the different types of techniques that the Nazi’s used to sterilize men and women. Chalmers explains that women were particularly subject to medical experiments because the Nazis were obsessed with destroying inferior races and wanted to perfect the art of sterilization so no more undesirable elements would be born (Ibid 123). However, both men and women were subject to Nazi medical experiments like medical injections, X-Rays, and chemicals, which resulted in burnt skin, abnormalities, and death. Among these experimentations many chemical companies, doctors, and University professors supported the experiments being done on

“I will remember that there is an art to medicine as well as a science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife and the chemist’s drug.” (Louis Lasagna). However, the doctors of the holocaust didn’t care, and used the victims as guinea pigs for the results. The medical experiments performed during the Holocaust had horrific outcomes for those experimented upon.

Many claim that doctors were only advancing science, and others claim the horrid acts that were committed were done because of the hatred towards the Jewish people. Regardless of which fact is inevitably true, both situations caused cruel and inhuman treatment to the Jews, and ultimately led to their deaths at the camps. A civilian doctor named Carl Clauberg was famous for his sterilization experiments. The procedure involved injections to the cervix to destroy the fallopian tubes, and then often the victims were gassed and left for dead (Winik 9). When the Jews arrived on transports, Nazi doctors immediately determined who would be gassed and who would go to a work camp (Winik 8). In Auschwitz, Nazi doctors presided over the murder of most of the one million victims of that camp. “Doctors consulted actively on how best to keep selections running smoothly, on how many people to permit to remain alive to fill the slave labor requirements” … “and on how to burn the enormous numbers of bodies that strained the facilities of the crematoria (Gutman 303). In the book, “Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp,” Yisrael Gutman offers a summary of the events that took place at Auschwitz:

These experiments were not only full of hate but also used for the advancement of medicine and effective treatment of the patient. Some were just out of fascination and believed they were for the better of the Aryan race. Injecting prisoners with chemicals, raising and lowering body temperature, and comparing the vitals of twins under extreme conditions are just three ways doctors of the Holocaust used prisoners for medical advancement. Since that age and time we have strived to move forward from that period and time and focus more on the patient's well being rather than the

     As a society we place those in the medical profession on a pedestal. They are people to be looked up to and admired. In many ways they are Gods, right here with us on earth. People put the hope and faith in doctors hoping they can perform miracles. Throughout history, doctors have indeed preformed many wonders. There were, however, some doctors that betrayed this belief and peoples trust. These doctors could be found in concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Dachau. These doctors committed unspeakable acts against the Jews and other minorities, believing that they were conducting helpful experiments. Following the holocaust, however, they were punished for their

The first, and maybe most important, mistake made by these researchers was the fact that they did not tell their research subjects what was actually happening. They were promised treatment, but instead were not treated at all. Public health services even went to extreme lengths to make sure the subjects

Holocaust: Medical Experiments During the Third Reich between 1933 through 1945, The Nazis not only stripped Jews and other minorities groups of their dignity and possessions but their humanity. The medical experiments that were conducted during the Holocaust were absurd and inhuman. Many Jews and minority groups suffered the wrath of the Nazis. Doctors performed unethical procedures that let many to their death.

Some of the experiments they used them for included treatments for hypothermia, maximum height that crews from damaged aircraft could parachute to safety, making seawater safe to drink, treatments for contagious diseases, test drug efficacy, sterilization, and Josef Mengele’s experiments on twins (Medical). Although many other SS physicians conducted experiments in the camps, Mengele’s are the most famous. Before he came to the camps, he performed numerous experiments on twins. When he arrived at the camps he was told it was okay to kill them, so he took that opportunity to perform long, painful and dangerous experiments

Experiments were carried out by the Nazi’s to start an advancement in German medicine compared to the rest of the world. Tons of medical and scientific testing was done in the concentration camps to prisoners with no consent of the patients (“Nazi Medical Experiment…”). The experiments so harmful, that there was nearly no chance of survival except for a few. It led some to disability, mutation, and most likely death.

The Nuremberg Doctor’s trial of 1946 involves human experimentation performed by the Nazi doctors. These physicians were accused of conducting torturous “experiments” with concentration camp inmates. During these studies, physicians conducted treatments that were not permitted and caused severe injuries to the participants, and in some cases, participants died as a result of this. Prisoners were left to freeze to study more on hypothermia. Later, during December 9th, 1946 to August 20th, 1947 representatives establish a Nuremberg trial to prosecuted these doctors for the atrocities that they committed and 23 out 15 were found guilty. As a result, the Nuremberg code was created to

The Nuremberg Doctors Trial of 1946 is the preeminent case recognizing the importance of medical ethics and human rights specifically about human research subjects. The defendants in the trials include Nazi leadership, physicians, and investigators prosecuted for conducting unethical and inhumane medical experiments on civilians and prisoners of war resulting in extreme pain, suffering, permanent injury and often death. The Nuremberg Code, borne of these trials, establishes ethical guidelines for human experimentation to ensure the rights of subjects in medical research. Herein, this writer will first identify and discuss ethical dilemmas presented in the Nuremberg case followed by three

Main ethical violations in clinical research that contribute to the abuse of subjects include paternalism, informed consent, lack of ethical supervision and the avoidance of legislation in relation to the ethics of health care and research. Human rights has been widely violated throughout history as seen in multiple events. As early as the 1930’s, researchers involved in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, withheld information and treatment from a large group of African American men with syphilis. Following this tragic event, Nazi concentration camps were established. German scientists conducted research with the involvement of the prisoners. Disfigurement, disabilities and death were often the results of the Nazi human experimentation. During the creation of the atomic bomb, the United States government sponsored the research of the involvement of subjects being exposed to radiation without their informed consent. In addition, James Watson and Francis Crick obtained their data of x-ray