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nazi medical experiments
advances in medicine during ww2
advances in medicine during ww2
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Is teleportation more than just an idea? Can one twin feel the pain of another? Why is freezing bad? When Hitler rose to power in the early 1920’s to late 1930’s, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or more commonly known as the Nazi Party, tried to answer many of these questions - and more. While nearly all of these experiments performed by the Nazi party were cruel and grotesque, the medical world did learn a great deal about medical conditions, medical practices, and the capability of the human body. The German scientists performed three main types of experiments: pharmaceutical testing, war-injury and illness experimentation, and racial experimentation.
For pharmaceutical testing, the Nazis employed many of their concentration camps, such as Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler, Neuengamme, Dachau, and Buchenwald, to test certain drugs on their Jewish prisoners. Different compound were experimented with to see if they could fight contagious diseases like hepatitis, yellow fever, tuberculosis, and typhus. For one particular experiment on malaria, over 1000 Jewish inmates were infected with mosquitos that had malaria or injected with malaria-infected blood. One prisoner, Vieweg, said, “I was used for malaria experiments by Professor Dachfinney at Dachau concentration camp .... On five occasions, I received injections of five cubic centimeters of highly infectious malaria blood.
Quite often, I ran a very high temperature. I got into a very exhausted condition, and after the injection, I received large doses of medical drugs, quinine, ephedrine, and many others”; she continued on to say that even several years later, she would still have malaria attacks and had a difficult time working (Spitz). In other tests, subjects were pois...
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...sent, there must be a valid reason behind the research (not just for curiosity’s sake), and research must have successfully be performed on animals first.
Works Cited
Bachrach, Susan, PhD. "In the Name of Public Health - Nazi Racial Hygiene." The New England Journal of Medicine 351.5 (2004): 417-20. ProQuest. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.
Haverkamp, Beth. "Nazi Medical Experiment Report: Evidence from the Nuremberg." Social Education 59.6 (1995): 367. ProQuest. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.
"Josef Mengele and The Medical Experiments." Josef Mengele and the Medical Experiments. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
"Nazi Medical Experiments: Background & Overview." Background & Overview of Nazi Medical Experiments. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
Spitz, Vivien. Doctors from Hell: the Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans. Boulder, CO: Sentient Publications, LLC, 2005. 02 Apr. 2014.
During the Holocaust, the Nazis carried out many unethical medical experiments on patients without regard for their survival. Prisoners were forced to be subjects in various studies against their will. The Nazis’ victims went through indescribable pain as they were forced through high-altitude, freezing, tuberculosis, sea water, sulfanilamide, poison, and transplant experiments. Through these tragic Holocaust experiments, scientists and doctors discovered treatments used today for high-altitude sickness, hypothermia, contagious diseases, dehydration, poisoning, and war wounds.
"Medical Experiments ." 10 June 2013. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . 18 March 2014 .
Between 1939 and 1945, more than seventy medical research projects and medical experiments were conducted at Auschwitz and Dachau. (Auschwitz Medical Experimentation). Over two hundred doctors participated in such research projects and experiments, sentencing between 70,000 and 100,000 people, held against their will, to death through experimentation. These were mostly Jews, but also gypsies, homosexuals and other minorities. They were thought to be inferior to the human race. Such practices became widely accepted and embraced by the Germans, due to the Nazis propaganda. The experiments conducted were diverse, but could be categorized in three classes.
As the human species develops, medicine follows suit. Researchers look down medicinal avenues which promise a better life-- a longer life. However, red and blue paint cannot engender purple paint without proper mixing. Thus, health sciences cannot expand without thorough experimentation. The Nazis exemplified this concept of “thorough experimentation” with their cruel and inhumane medical experiments. The trials varied in nature and reason. Some of the “experiments had legitimate scientific purposes, though the methods that were used violated the canons of medical ethics. Others were racial in nature, designed to advance Nazi racial theories. [However,] Most were simply bad science.” (jewishvirtuallibrary.org). The medical experiments performed by the Nazis were vast and highly divergent, but they can generally be divided into three categories: racial experimentation, war-injury experimentation, and pharmaceutical testing.
Many medical experiments went on during the holocaust, mostly in concentration camps. These subjects included Jews, Gypsies, twins, and political prisoners. The experiments included many of these people never survived many were killed for further examination. The Jewish people got the full wrath of the injections, inhumane surgeries, and other experimentations. Twins were also desirable in these experiments to show a controlled group. Gypsies and political prisoners were experimented with, because they were there for the Germans disposal. Thousands of people died in these horrible experiments. These experiments were performed to show how the Jewish race was inferior to the Aryan race.
During World War II, Hitler rounded up people who were not part of the Aryan Race and sent them to concentration camps; in those camps, some of those people served as test subjects for medical experimentation. These experiments separate into three categories. The first type were “experiments aimed at facilitating the survival of Axis military personnel,” (Museum). Next, the “experimentation aimed at developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and occupation personnel encountered in the field” (Museum). Finally, the “[experimentations] sought to advance the racial and ideological tenets of the Nazi worldview” (Museum). In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, Dr. Mengele conducted at least two of the selections that Elie had to watch and go through, but it is different because in Night, Elie Wiesel was not aware of the experiments and only saw Dr. Mengele during the selections. Dr. Mengele and other SS doctors received the power to test various medical experiments on Jews, Gypsies, war prisoners, the unwanted, and others that Hitler sent to concentration camps. Some were done for science and others were just to satisfy the doctor's interests.
In 1933 German politician Adolf Hitler led a genocide known as the Holocaust, which eventually led to “The Final Solution”, throughout this time over 6 million Jews were persecuted due to the fact that “The Nazi ideology was predicated on the concept of racial supremacy. At the top of the tree was the Aryan race; at the foot were the ‘untermenschen’: blacks, gypsies, homosexuals and Jews” (Bogod). During this time German doctors performed a number of unethical medical experiments in order to advance in medicine, these crimes were committed against individuals, without consent. Recently, I read Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account, a novel written by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, the information documented in the novel was difficult to digest due
The third category of medical experimentation sought to advance the racial and ideological tenets of the Nazi worldview. The most infamous were the experiments of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. Mengele conducted medical experiments on twins. He also directed serological experiments on Roma, as did Werner Fischer at Sachsenhausen, in order to determine how different "races" withstood various contagious diseases. The research of August Hirt at Strasbourg University also intended to establish "Jewish racial inferiority."
Along with Josef Mengele, other medical doctors joined the Nazi party and performed wicked medical experiments inside and outside concentration camps. Some other medical practitioners include Dr. Karl Brandt, Dr. Herta Oberheuser, Dr. Carl Clauberg, and Dr. Horst Schumann. These doctors not only performed experiments to help Germany’s military, they also experimented ways to advance their belief that the Aryan race is superior to all others. These doctors executed many unreasonable and vile experiments on the innocent victims of the Holocaust.
1. Gutman, Yisrael. “Nazi Doctors.” Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Indiana University Press: 1994. 301-316
The Nazi’s perpetrated many horrors during the Holocaust. They enacted many cruel laws. They brainwashed millions into foolishly following them and believing their every word using deceitful propaganda tactics. They forced many to suffer doing embarrassing jobs and to live in crowded ghettos. They created mobile killing squads to exterminate their enemies. Finally, as part of “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question”, they made concentration and killing camps. Another thing the Nazi’s did was to use eugenics as another mean to micromanage the population. What is eugenics, you might ask? It’s the field of scientific study or the belief in genetically improving qualities, attributes and traits in the human race and/or improving the species as a whole—usually done by controlled/selective breeding. Those with positive, desirable, and superior traits are encouraged to reproduce and may be given monetary incentives by the government to have large families. Those with negative, undesirable, or inferior traits may be discouraged from having offspring. They may be sterilized, or undergo dangerous medical procedures or operations with high mortality rates. I chose this topic because it appealed to me and seemed interesting. In the following paragraphs, the tactics, methods, and propaganda the Nazi’s used will be exposed.
Of course, most of these experiments happened in concentration camps. Most of the experiments ended with the victims either developing tuberculosis or dying after the experiments were done. This means most of the experiments had to deal with the lungs and a temperature change in the body. In addition, they were most likely put in ice cold water and held there until the doctors got what they needed. "...victims of tuberculosis medical experiments...immersed in icy water..."(Memorial Museum). Equally important, some experiments even consisted of putting dirt and bacteria into a person's body! This was to figure out how they can help the soldiers who were getting infections heal, so using people they didn't care about for the research was the best thing they could do in their eyes. Sadly, most of these victims died before any of the camps were
The Nazis performed some of the most horrific experiments of anyone. The Auschwitz under the direction of Dr. Eduard wirths had inmates selected to certain experiments which were designed to help the Germans. The Nazis performed an experiment on twins in the camp to see if the eugenics and genetics affected their mood and or their attitude. The leader of this experiment was Dr. Josef Mengele, he has performed over 1,500 of these experiments on imprisoned twins, but there are some ups and downs about the experiment because there have only been fewer than 200 twins survived the study. The Luftwaffe conducted an experiment on how to treat hypothermia in the early 1940s. The way they conducted the experiment was they would fill a tank full of ice and water; they put the victim in it for up to three hours. During July 1942 to September 1943, some experiments would have pretty bad wounds on the subjects there would be victims infected with such as streptococcus, gas gangrene, and tetanus. The Nazis are a group that didn’t care about anyone but themselves,
AV. Pathways to human experimentation, 1933-1945: Germany, Japan, and the United States. In: Sachse C, Walker M, eds. Osiris, 2nd Series, Volume 20, Politics and Science in Wartime: Comparative International Perspectives on the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press; 2005:205-231.
The T4 program was not the beginning of Germany’s effort to reach a super race. Leading up to the war Hitler enacted the “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases” in the year of 1933. The law called for the sterilization of anyone that had any hereditary illnesses. The list of hereditary illnesses included: “schizophrenia, epilepsy, senile disorders, therapy resistant paralysis and syphilitic diseases, retardation, encephalitis, Huntington’s chorea and other neurological conditions.” (History Place) This law was enforced by opening 200 genetic health courts that would analyze the medical records of individuals and decide if they were to be sterilized or not. The sterilization of people usually involved the use of drugs, x-rays, or uterine irritants. Dr. Horst Schumann did a lot of these experiments with sterilization at Auschwitz, where he would take a group of men/women and would expose them to x-rays. Most of his experiments with x-rays were disappointing but he kept using this method. After he subjected his subjects to x...