serious question

[phillyfornia]

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a friend of mine told me the other day that his brother, a really smart guy who's now an intern, told him that a lot of important medical knowledge came from experiments that the nazis performed on jews during the holocaust. i had never heard anything like this before and was reluctant to believe it but his brother, from what i've seen/heard, is a real smart guy who doesn't seem like he would lie (especially about something like this). so i was wondering if anyone else has ever heard of this? and if so, what kind of medical knowledge was gained?

 

[kinetic]

In investigating this claim (which I find to be ******ed, BTW), I came up with this information.

Most experiments conducted by the Nazis were tests of human limits. For example, seeing how long the human body could withstand hypothermia (victims were frozen) or extreme heat (victims were literally baked/boiled alive). They also conducted surgeries without anesthetic to see how humans would tolerate it.

None of this information has been used for any purpose in medicine. To suggest that it has been is ******ed. To spread this type of misinformation only leads to mistrust of the medical community and attempts (for what reason I don't know) to associate physicians with Nazis. 👎

 

[peanut99]

i'm not sure about the experiments, but there is an atlas that is widely used that was written by nazi doctors using prisoners of concentration camps for dissections. there were some articles published in respectable journals within the last few years detailing this and discussing the ethical responsibilities of medical schools using this atlas. there are certain us med schools that recently have banned the use of this atlas. i know that you can find these articles in a pubmed search but i can't remember the name of the atlas right now.

 

[gioia]

Agree or Disagree, there is truth in the aforementioned.

When I was in Germany and visited a concentration camp, I saw in photos what I thought was reserved for the worst of nightmares.

I have absolutely nothing against the medical community (I'm a med student), but that's life. Unfortunately we learn quite alot from unorthodox methods. It is strictly reality and not at limited to the medical field (read Chorus of Stones).

Hypothermia. Hyperthermia. Behaviour during death. Freezing, burning. Think about it. Think about medical history in general. Read it (try the Author Roy Porter).

 

[Singh]

I watched a documentary about nazi-german and jew relations. It was suggested by the narrator that there was evidence pointing to the fact that jews were indeed used under experiments which would be considered highly unethical today. When confronted with this question, a now-living, then-german doctor stopped the interview and did not want to answer the question. It's upto the reader to draw his/her own conclusions 🙂

 

[dcpark74]

i read a book about 'Dr. Mengele (sp?)' (Auschwitz)

deranged/sadistic man
e.g. taped mother's nipples after birth to see how long it took for the baby to die without nursing; dissected twins to see if there was some magic way of producing twins in order to replenish the German army; had his office walls covered with hundreds of pinned up eye balls (his interest was changing the color of the iris to blue) and directly injected dyes into victims. Of course like all nazi war criminals, he escaped after the war to the nazi tolerant country (at that time) of argentina and escaped punishment.

 

[footcramp]

actually i've heard about this anatomy atlas
it's supposed to be amazing
my classmate used it before
hidden in some wierd area of the medical library

pernkopf?

 

[tofurious]

The aforementioned atlas is slowly being phased out of public view, but remains one of the best anatomical charts (especially for surgical subspecialties I have heard). Many pictures are quite obvious since they include the subject's face, which usually bore a malnourished and shaven look. The physicians who authored the atlas also frequently signed their names with "SS", which was subsequently removed in some editions of the atals.

One book that might interest you is the Nazi War on Cancer. You'll see that many of the things we are trying to do now (such as screening) were started by the Nazi. It is not as clear cut as one would like. But just like the highway system and the Volkswagon, we don't really question who started all these things while we enjoy the modern day convenience do we?

 

[Gleevec]

a friend of mine told me the other day that his brother, a really smart guy who's now an intern, told him that a lot of important medical knowledge came from experiments that the nazis performed on jews during the holocaust. i had never heard anything like this before and was reluctant to believe it but his brother, from what i've seen/heard, is a real smart guy who doesn't seem like he would lie (especially about something like this). so i was wondering if anyone else has ever heard of this? and if so, what kind of medical knowledge was gained?

A lot of the hypothermia treatment data used in the US was also generated by the Nazis.

 

[Domitian]

The Nazis weren't the half of it. Among the well informed, the German atrocities are well known. The Japanese atrocities aren't. Does Unit 731 ring a bell? It should. Every physician should read about it, because the only way to prevent this sort of thing is to learn about it.

Unit 731

 

[Hosehead]

I had a class on medical ethics in undergrad and we specifically studies this topic. We found no medical efficacy to any of the tests that they ran on Jews or other prisioners, unless you consider determining how sex revives hypothermic patients. In regards to the Japanese, check out this link http://www.mitsubishisucks.com/slave-labor.html

 

[pikachu]

This is why the correct way to refer to "Reiter's Syndrome" (classic triad of autoimmune urethritis, uveitis, arthritis usually following urinary tract infection in men) is actually "Reactive Arthritis." Reiter was a Nazi "doctor" (involved in experiments on inmates at Buchenwald, tried for war crimes at Nuremberg) who first described this syndrome. Good enough reason for me to not commemorate him in the annals of eponym-etry.

See:

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cach...eiter+arthritis+urethritis+uveitis+nazi&hl=en
and
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12621585

 

[finnpipette]

It's true. Nazi/Japanese docs did experiments such as cut off a person's arm and try to attach it to another individual. You can actually rent these videos...they're near the faces of death section. Learned a lot about the immune system, human limits, etc. Before we keep bashing the Germans, this isn't too much worse that what American doctors did to African Americans in the South. The name escapes me, but they wanted to see the effects of late stage gonorrhea, so they gave the patients placebos and basically watched them die. Pretty f*cked up if you ask me.

 

[E Z Daring]

^you are referring to the Tuskegee experiment. What people put other people through never stops scaring me

 

[ForensicPath]

i read a book about 'Dr. Mengele (sp?)' (Auschwitz)

deranged/sadistic man
e.g. taped mother's nipples after birth to see how long it took for the baby to die without nursing; dissected twins to see if there was some magic way of producing twins in order to replenish the German army; had his office walls covered with hundreds of pinned up eye balls (his interest was changing the color of the iris to blue) and directly injected dyes into victims. Of course like all nazi war criminals, he escaped after the war to the nazi tolerant country (at that time) of argentina and escaped punishment.

The Angel of Death. The Slayer song of the same name is based on this guy. This is one of the reasons why Slayer was labelled as a Nazi band even though they are not.

 

[Apparition]

I watched a documentary in which survivors of concentration camps were interviewed. A nazi "doctor" carried out experiments on people attempting to change their eye color. He claimed he kept doing the tests so that these people are not killed.

 

[pikachu]

^you are referring to the Tuskegee experiment. What people put other people through never stops scaring me

The Tuskegee experiments observed end stage syphilis

 

[gioia]

Interesting sight regarding the aforementioned 731:

731

 

[edmadison]

The Tuskegee experiments observed end stage syphilis

When the Tuskegee "experiment" began there was no effective treatment for syphilis. The study was observational. No problem there. The horrible thing was that the researchers continued observation and examination of the subjects even after effective treatments had been developed -- 30 years after. The researcher's rationalization of their own behavior is truely chilling. They claimed they did nothing wrong because they never intended to treat anything, just watch.

Ed

 

[bigdan]

When the Tuskegee "experiment" began there was no effective treatment for syphilis. The study was observational. No problem there.

Ed

Not confrontational, just asking - Didn't the "experimenters" PURPOSELY infect the subjects with syphilis? That I'd have a problem with...

dc

 

[edmadison]

Not confrontational, just asking - Didn't the "experimenters" PURPOSELY infect the subjects with syphilis? That I'd have a problem with...

dc

I have never heard that, but I could be illinformed.

Ed

 

[Gleevec]

Not confrontational, just asking - Didn't the "experimenters" PURPOSELY infect the subjects with syphilis? That I'd have a problem with...

dc

They didnt infect them with syphilis, they already had it. Instead, they simply observed their deaths never telling the subjects they had syphilis or it could be treated.

So yes, there is a huge moral problem with this experiment, and it was completely unethical. Its the equivalent of taking an African community with AIDS, denying them ALL treatment options, and then watching them die one by one. Sounds heinous? I agree, thats why the Tuskeegee Expts were so terrible.

And the worst part was that this was in America during the latter half of the 20th century. Absolutely disgusting.

 

[DrRichardKimble]

Some of you are misinformed. The CURRENT data tables documenting survival times in cold water used by the US Navy and US Coast Guard, ARE from experiments performed by Nazi physicians during the holocaust in concentration camps.

I too have been to europe and visited two concentration camps, Dachau and another smaller camp in Germany. Josef Mengele was the physician in charge of most of these experiments, not to mention hundreds of other unspeakable crimes against humanity.

 

[gioia]

Some of you are misinformed. The CURRENT data tables documenting survival times in cold water used by the US Navy and US Coast Guard, ARE from experiments performed by Nazi physicians during the holocaust in concentration camps.

I too have been to europe and visited two concentration camps, Dachau and another smaller camp in Germany. Josef Mengele was the physician in charge of most of these experiments, not to mention hundreds of other unspeakable crimes against humanity.

Most definitely.

 

[HollyJ]

Bayer also paid for their medicines to be tested on concentration camp prisoners.