Statistics on gender indicate a proportion of male to female of approximately 2:1 ( Table 2 ). One possible reason is the high number of military experiments as related to infectious diseases. Another is that more men than women were held in concentration camps, so that there was a higher male availability in the predominately male camps. In Ravensbrück the situation was reversed with the large female camp and a small male compound ( Figure 3 ).
Clandestine photograph of a mutilated leg of the Polish political prisoner Bogumiła Babińska-Dobrowska at Ravensbrück concentration camp. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Anna Hassa Jarosky and Peter Hassa W/S #69340.
Gender | Confirmed victim | Pending | Total |
---|---|---|---|
Female | 3960 | 4381 | 8341 |
Male | 9700 | 7188 | 16,888 |
Unknown | 2094 | 436 | 2530 |
Total | 15,754 | 12,005 | 27,759 |
While for most nationalities male victims were the majority, in the case of certain national groups, female victims were in the majority. This is the case for victim groups from the Netherlands (in the case of sterilisation at Auschwitz), and Greece (for the Jewish skeleton collection). Children were often victims of experiments in psychiatric clinics. Later in the war, Roma and Jewish children were targeted for research by Mengele in Auschwitz.
The statistics show the age distribution was the same for men and women. While there was a very wide age spectrum, the peak is of victims born in 1921, so in their early twenties at the time of the experiment ( Figure 4 ). Several hundred Jewish children were held by Mengele for twin research, and batches of Jewish children were dispatched for hepatitis and tuberculosis research, and body parts of small children were retained by psychiatric researchers.
Age of victims at the start of experiment.
Ethnicity and religion have been recorded, as for the definitively confirmed experiment victims ( Table 3 ). Here, one is thrown back on the categories imposed by the Nazis. Thus a victim of the Jewish skeleton collection for the anatomy department at Strasbourg was baptised Protestant. 18 Generally, the Nazis used the generic and stigmatising term of ‘Zigeuner’ or gypsy rather than the self-identifying terms of ‘Sinti’ and ‘Roma’.
Ethnicity | Confirmed victims (15,754) |
---|---|
Jewish | 20% (3098) |
Roma and Sinti | 2% (335) |
Unknown or other | 78% (12,321) |
In addition to the experiment victims are Roma and Sinti victims of large scale anthropological investigations of Ritter, Justin, and Ehrhardt, amounting to at least a further 21,498 persons ( Figure 5 ).
A gypsy used for seawater experiments in Dachau to test methods of making seawater drinkable, ca. July–September 1944. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park W/S #78688.
If however one takes the year 1943 we find a higher proportion of Jewish victims, in part because of the intensification of experiments on Jews (particularly on women and children) at Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. This would again indicate that there was an intensification of racial research ( Table 4 ).
Religion | Confirmed victims | Pending | Total |
---|---|---|---|
Jewish | 3076 | 792 | 3868 |
Other or unknown | 12,678 | 11,217 | 23,891 |
Grand total | 15,754 | 12,008 | 27,759 |
Victim number indicates how from 1942 onwards there was an overall intensification of research ( Figure 6 ).
Start year of experiments.
The life history approach allows appraisal of both experiments and victim numbers over time. The period 1933–39 shows sporadic experimentation in the context of racial hygiene. Mixed race adolescents were sterilised and evaluated by anthropologists. The concerns of racial hygiene with mental illness explain why psychiatrists and neurologists conducted experiments in psychiatric institutions. The psychiatrist Georg Schaltenbrand pointed out that his neurological research subjects were transferred to other institutions, many as we now know to be killed. This interrupted his research on the transmissibility of multiple sclerosis. The numbers of brains and body parts increased. From 1942 onwards there was an overall intensification of research.
The chart ( Figure 7 ) shows when experiments started, but not the distribution of victims over time.
Victims by start year of each experiment.
The largest series of experiments were for infectious diseases. Malaria research at Dachau between 1942 and 1945 had 1091 confirmed victims, and after infection different combinations of drugs were tested. These experiments by Schilling began in 1942 and remarkably Schilling tried to continue the research after the liberation of the camp. 19
He pleaded at his trial to be allowed to continue the research, albeit on volunteers. The highest numbers were in 1943. The momentum continued even though the war was clearly lost. Other large groups included the twins researched on by Mengele, and to date 618 individuals are known ( Figure 8 ).
Twins Frank (lt) and Otto (rt) Klein attend a world gathering of survivors of Dr. Joseph Mengele's medical experiments at Auschwitz. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum W/S #05586.
The overall findings provide an accurate basis for analysis of experiments to date. First, nearly a quarter of confirmed victims were either killed to obtain their organs for research, or died as a result of experiments taking the research subject to the point of death (notoriously, the experiments on freezing and low pressure at Dachau). The euthanasia killings and executions were sources of bodies for research, and the extent that this happened and research conducted before and after the end of the war is still being documented. Of the fully documented victims died 781 died before the end of the war as a result of the experiments: research subjects were weakened by the strain of the experiment such as a deliberate infection or severe cold, or they were deliberately killed because it was feared that they would testify against the perpetrators ( Table 5 ).
Fatalities.
Circumstances of death | Confirmed victim | Pending | Total |
---|---|---|---|
Body used for research (e.g. euthanasia and executed victims) | 2956 | 50 | 3006 |
Died (e.g. from injuries) or killed after the experiment | 781 | 23 | 804 |
Died from experimental procedures (e.g. when onset of death studied from freezing) | 383 | 171 | 554 |
Grand total | 4120 | 244 | 4364 |
While, most subjects survived, amounting to 24,010 persons, many had severe physical disabilities with life-long consequences. 20
The analysis presented here shows that several types of unethical medical research occurred under National Socialism. Not only were large numbers of victims affected, but also overall, numbers of surviving victims were far higher than anticipated. The survivors were often seriously disabled and handicapped for the remainder of their lives. The experiments gained in numbers with the war and the implementation of the Holocaust, and were sustained at a high level of intensity despite imminent defeat.
One issue arising is that body parts of deceased victims were retained by medical research and teaching institutes, notably for anatomy and brain research. While there was meant to be full disclosure of specimens deriving from euthanasia victims and executed persons by 1990, specimens continue to be identified. 21 The complex data is to be further augmented and refined, the history of specimens retained for research during and after WW2 is being documented, and the narratives of survivors analysed in order to understand more fully the consequences of coerced research. This research provides a basis in historical evidence for discussions of the ethics of coerced medical research.
Wellcome Trust Grant No 096580/Z/11/A on research subject narratives.
AHRC GRANT AH/E509398/1 Human Experiments under National Socialism.
Conference for Jewish Material Claims Against Germany Application 8229/Fund SO 29.
7 Annas G, Grodin M. The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code . New York: Oxford University Press; 1992; Weindling P. Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials: From Medical War Crimes to Informed Consent . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; 2000.
8 Weindling P. John Thompson (1906–1965): Psychiatrist in the Shadow of the Holocaust . Rochester: Rochester University Press; 2010.
9 Klee E. Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer . Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag; 1997; Mitscherlich A, Mielke F. Wissenschaft ohne Menschlichkeit . Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider; 1949. See also Schwarberg G. The Murders at Bullenhuser Damm: The SS Doctor and the Children . Bloomington: Indiana University Press; 1984.
10 Lang H-J. Die Namen der Nummern: Wie es gelang, die 86 Opfer eines NS-Verbrechens zu identifizieren. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe; 2004.
11 Brody H, Leonard S, Nie J-B, Weindling P. United States Responses to Japanese Wartime Inhuman Experimentation after World War II: National Security and Wartime Exigency. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2014; 23: 220–230.
12 Baumann S. Menschenversuche und Wiedergutmachung . München: Oldenbourg; 2009.
13 Schwerin A von. Experimentalisierung des Menschen: Der Genetiker Hans Nachtsheim und die vergleichende Erbpathologie 1920–1945 . Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag; 2004; Schmuhl H-W. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, 1927–1945: Crossing Boundaries . Dordrecht: Springer; 2008.
14 Roelcke V. Fortschritt ohne Rücksicht, In: Eschebach I, Ley A. eds . Geschlecht und “Rasse” in der NS-Medizin . Berlin: Metropol Verlag; 2012: 101–114.
15 Hildebrandt S. Anatomy in the Third Reich: An outline, Part 1. National Socialist politics, anatomical institutions, and anatomists. Clinical Anatomy 2009; 22: 883–893.
16 Hunt N. The Soviet Experience of Nazi Medicine: Statistics, Stories and Stereotypes . MPhil thesis, Oxfrod Brookes University; 2011; and Loewenau A. The impact of Nazi medical experiments on Polish inmates at Dachau, Auschwitz and Ravensbück . PhD thesis, Oxford Brookes University; 2012.
17 Weindling, P. Victims and Survivors of Nazi Human Experiments: Science and suffering in the Holocaust. London: Bloomsbury; 2014.
18 www.die-namen-der-nummern.de/html/the_names.html (accessed 8 October 2014).
19 Eckart WU, Vondra H. Malaria and World War II: German malaria experiments 1939–45 . Parassitologia 2000; 42:53–58.
20 Loewenau A. Die “Kaninchen” von Ravensbrück: Eine Fotogeschichte. In: Eschebach I, Ley A eds. Geschlecht und “Rasse” in der NS-Medizin . Berlin: Metropol Verlag; 2012:115–140.
21 Weindling P. “Cleansing” Anatomical Collections: The Politics of Removing Specimens from German Anatomical and Medical Collections 1988–92. Annals of Anatomy 2012; 194:237–242.
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The University of Florida Cancer and Genetics Research Complex is an integrated medical research facility. Medical research (or biomedical research ), also known as health research, refers to the process of using scientific methods with the aim to produce knowledge about human diseases, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the promotion ...
Basic medical research (otherwise known as experimental research) includes animal experiments, cell studies, biochemical, genetic and physiological investigations, and studies on the properties of drugs and materials. In almost all experiments, at least one independent variable is varied and the effects on the dependent variable are investigated.
Medical Experimentation. The use of experimentation on human subjects is a necessary method of advancing medical and public health knowledge. However, it has been abused extensively in the context of genocide and crimes against humanity, especially by the Axis Powers during World War II.Experimentation was part of the state-sanction behavior of Nazi doctors within the broader program of ...
The terms "in vivo" and "in vitro" describe different types of scientific research. "In vivo" means research done on a living organism, while "in vitro" means research done in a laboratory dish or test tube. Both types of studies are used by medical researchers developing drugs or studying diseases. Each type has benefits and drawbacks. In Vivo vs.
Science-based medicine depends upon human experimentation. Scientists can do the most fantastic translational research in the world, starting with elegant hypotheses, tested through in vitro and biochemical experiments, after which they are tested in animals. They can understand disease mechanisms to the individual amino acid level in a protein or nucleotide in a DNA molecule.
Abstract. Innovative therapy may appear to coincide with medical experimentation, raising ethical and legal issues, for instance on informed consent and institutional review. Medical treatments may be classified, however, to distinquish novel procedures from experimentation.
Bonah and Menut describe how Albert Calmette was able to establish the BCG vaccine as a nonexperimental "prophylactic treatment" against tuberculosis. 4 By definition, a medical experiment, as opposed to any other medical action, has definite ethical implications and consequences. Even though the BCG vaccine was in experimental stages ...
The experiment to be performed must be based on the results of animal experimentation and on a knowledge of the natural history of the disease under study, and must be so designed that the ...
The Nuremberg Military Tribunal's decision in the case of the United States v Karl Brandt et al. includes what is now called the Nuremberg Code, a ten point statement delimiting permissible medical experimentation on human subjects. According to this statement, humane experimentation is justified only if its results benefit society and it is ...
Innovative therapy may appear to coincide with medical experimentation, raising ethical and legal issues, for instance on informed consent and institutional review. Medical treatments may be classified, however, to distinquish novel procedures from experimentation.
Clinical research involves studying health and illness in people through observational studies or clinical trials. Participating in a trial or study has many potential benefits and also some possible risks. Learn about the benefits and risks of participating in clinical research and how your safety is protected.
MEDICAL EXPERIMENT definition | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples
Therapeutic Human Experimentation. Therapeutics. Innovative therapy may appear to coincide with medical experimentation, raising ethical and legal issues, for instance on informed consent and institutional review. Medical treatments may be classified, however, to distinquish novel procedures from experimentation.
Abstract. This article deals with the medical ethical dilemma in performing experiments on humans. Its aim is to examine and offer solutions to the complex subject of medical experimentation in relation to the medical community, society, the patient, doctor and nurse, keeping in mind the importance of its benefits to the patient and to medical ...
Table of contents. Step 1: Define your variables. Step 2: Write your hypothesis. Step 3: Design your experimental treatments. Step 4: Assign your subjects to treatment groups. Step 5: Measure your dependent variable. Other interesting articles. Frequently asked questions about experiments.
experiment. (ĭk-spĕr′ə-mənt) n. a. A test under controlled conditions that is made to demonstrate a known truth, examine the validity of a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy of something previously untried. b. The process of conducting such a test; experimentation.
The Nuremberg Military Tribunal's decision in the case of the United States v Karl Brandt et al. includes what is now called the Nuremberg Code, a ten point statement delimiting permissible medical experimentation on human subjects. According to this statement, humane experimentation is justified only if its results benefit society and it is ...
The informed consent requirements for medical experimentation arose as a reaction to the abuses of the Nazi doctors who conducted medical experiments on concentration camp victims, as well as to abuses by public health officials and investigators in this country during the Tuskegee syphilis study, in which treatment was withheld from African ...
A definition of medical ethics Medical ethicists and researchers commonly hold that there are seven general rules for an ethical experiment involving humans, explained Govind Persad, assistant law ...
The meaning of EXPERIMENT is test, trial. How to use experiment in a sentence.
Unethical human experimentation is human experimentation that violates the principles of medical ethics.Such practices have included denying patients the right to informed consent, using pseudoscientific frameworks such as race science, and torturing people under the guise of research. Around World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany carried out brutal experiments on prisoners and ...
Background. The coerced human experiments and research under National Socialism constitute a reference point in modern bioethics. 7 Yet discussions of consent and the need for safeguards for research subjects to date lack a firm basis in historical evidence. There has been no full evaluation of the numbers of victims of Nazi research, who the victims were, and of the frequency and types of ...
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in goal and scale but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results.