MEDICAL TREATMENT AND MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMP DACHAU

Nezanemariv broj njemačkih liječnika se za vrijeme Trećeg Reicha stavio u službu nacističkog režima, zanemarujući humane ciljeve svoje struke. U radu su opisani medicinski pokusi koje su njemački liječnici vršili nad logorašima koncentracijskog logora Dachau tijekom Drugog svjetskog rata. Ovi pokusi imali su teške i trajne posljedice na zdravlje logoraπa, a mnogi od njih su tijekom izvođenja pokusa i umrli. Pokusi najčešće nisu imali nikakvog smisla, budući da ni na koji način nisu pridonijeli medicinskoj znanosti.During the Third Reich many German physicians supported the Nazis. Physicians took part in torture and killing of the enemies of the Nazi regime. Killing of the mentally disabled persons was a common practice. Concentration camps internees were used for medical experiments and were often tortured to death in process. The aim of the experiments was to improve the medical treatment of the German soldiers and to help them survive at the battlefield. But the results of the experiments were either well-known or totally useless. In the concentration camps ill or injured internees were not medically treated. Either they recovered on their own or they died. Hygienic conditions in the camps were deplorable. Water was scarce and unclean, lice and fleas infested the crowded barracks and thousands of people died of typhus or other infections without receiving any medical help. No matter, how tired, weak or ill internees were, they had to hide it they wanted to survive. Various medical experiments were conducted in the concentration camp Dachau. The research projects performed concerned diverse subjects as the efficacity and side effects of new drugs, the effects of chemical weapons and the efficiency of new methods of sterilization. Prisoners were subjected to extremely low atmospheric pressure and profound hypothermia in order to discover the limits that a body could tolerate. Furthermore prisoners were infected with bacteria in order to assess the efficacy and side effects of sulfonamides. The number of people who did not survive the experiments was extremely high. After the war several physicians who conducted the medical experiments were sentenced to death. Other were sentenced to various prison terms. But a lot of them were freed after several years and were able to continue working as physicians

MEDICAL TREATMENT AND MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMP DACHAU

Nezanemariv broj njemačkih liječnika se za vrijeme Trećeg Reicha stavio u službu nacističkog režima, zanemarujući humane ciljeve svoje struke. U radu su opisani medicinski pokusi koje su njemački liječnici vršili nad logorašima koncentracijskog logora Dachau tijekom Drugog svjetskog rata. Ovi pokusi imali su teške i trajne posljedice na zdravlje logoraπa, a mnogi od njih su tijekom izvođenja pokusa i umrli. Pokusi najčešće nisu imali nikakvog smisla, budući da ni na koji način nisu pridonijeli medicinskoj znanosti.During the Third Reich many German physicians supported the Nazis. Physicians took part in torture and killing of the enemies of the Nazi regime. Killing of the mentally disabled persons was a common practice. Concentration camps internees were used for medical experiments and were often tortured to death in process. The aim of the experiments was to improve the medical treatment of the German soldiers and to help them survive at the battlefield. But the results of the experiments were either well-known or totally useless. In the concentration camps ill or injured internees were not medically treated. Either they recovered on their own or they died. Hygienic conditions in the camps were deplorable. Water was scarce and unclean, lice and fleas infested the crowded barracks and thousands of people died of typhus or other infections without receiving any medical help. No matter, how tired, weak or ill internees were, they had to hide it they wanted to survive. Various medical experiments were conducted in the concentration camp Dachau. The research projects performed concerned diverse subjects as the efficacity and side effects of new drugs, the effects of chemical weapons and the efficiency of new methods of sterilization. Prisoners were subjected to extremely low atmospheric pressure and profound hypothermia in order to discover the limits that a body could tolerate. Furthermore prisoners were infected with bacteria in order to assess the efficacy and side effects of sulfonamides. The number of people who did not survive the experiments was extremely high. After the war several physicians who conducted the medical experiments were sentenced to death. Other were sentenced to various prison terms. But a lot of them were freed after several years and were able to continue working as physicians

How the Pernkopf controversy facilitated a historical and ethical analysis of the anatomical sciences in Austria and Germany: A recommendation for the continued use of the Pernkopf atlas

Eduard Pernkopf's Topographical Anatomy of Man has been a widely used standard work of anatomy for over sixty years. International inquiries about the National Socialist (NS) political background of Eduard Pernkopf and the use of bodies of NS victims for the atlas were first directed at the University of Vienna in 1996. A public discussion about the further use of the book followed and led to the creation of the Senatorial Project of the University of Vienna in 1997. This historical research project confirmed the strong NS affiliation of Pernkopf and revealed the delivery of at least 1,377 bodies of executed persons to the Anatomical Institute of Vienna during the NS time. The possible use of these bodies as models cannot be excluded for up to half of the approximately 800 plates in the atlas. In addition tissue specimens from NS victims were found and removed from the collections of the Viennese Medical School and received a burial in a grave of honor. The Pernkopf controversy facilitated the historical and ethical analysis of the anatomical sciences in Austria and Germany during the NS regime. The continued use of the Pernkopf atlas is not only justifiable but desirable as a tool in the teaching of anatomy, history, and ethics. Clin. Anat. 19:91–100, 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49530/1/20272_ftp.pd

Capital punishment and anatomy: History and ethics of an ongoing association

Anatomical science has used the bodies of the executed for dissection over many centuries. As anatomy has developed into a vehicle of not only scientific but also moral and ethical education, it is important to consider the source of human bodies for dissection and the manner of their acquisition. From the thirteenth to the early seventeenth century, the bodies of the executed were the only legal source of bodies for dissection. Starting in the late seventeenth century, the bodies of unclaimed persons were also made legally available. With the developing movement to abolish the death penalty in many countries around the world and with the renunciation of the use of the bodies of the executed by the British legal system in the nineteenth century, two different practices have developed in that there are Anatomy Departments who use the bodies of the executed for dissection or research and those who do not. The history of the use of bodies of the executed in German Anatomy Departments during the National Socialist regime is an example for the insidious slide from an ethical use of human bodies in dissection to an unethical one. There are cases of contemporary use of unclaimed or donated bodies of the executed, but they are rarely well documented. The intention of this review is to initiate an ethical discourse about the use of the bodies of the executed in contemporary anatomy. Clin. Anat. 21:5–14, 2008. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57528/1/20571_ftp.pd

The women on stieve's list: Victims of national socialism whose bodies were used for anatomical research

Research on the history of anatomy in the Third Reich has often concentrated on the influence of the National Socialist (NS) regime on anatomists and their consequent unethical activities. Only recently, the focus has shifted to NS victims whose bodies were used for anatomical purposes. As a first approach to learning more about the victims, this study investigated the persons whose names Hermann Stieve, chairman of the Anatomical Department at the University of Berlin, had listed after using their bodies for his research. The study draws a group portrait and recounts selected biographies of the 174 women and eight men on the list. Most women were of reproductive age, two‐thirds were German and a majority was executed for political reasons. Among the executed were at least two pregnant women. The corrected names, biographical data, and nationalities of all persons on the list are published here. None of them volunteered to be dissected, nor were the anatomists at the time interested in the victims' personal background. Future work will have to focus on the investigation of further biographies so that numbers can be turned back into people. This history is a reminder to modern anatomy that ethical body procurement and the anatomists' caring about the body donor is of the utmost importance in a discipline that introduces students to professional ethics in the medical teaching curriculum. Clin. Anat. 26:3–21, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94885/1/22195_ftp.pd

Anatomy in the Third Reich: An outline, part 2. Bodies for anatomy and related medical disciplines

All anatomical departments of German universities used bodies of the executed and other victims of the National Socialist (NS) regime for their work. Many of these victims had been executed in prisons and were members of the German political opposition; others had perished in camps for prisoners of war or forced laborers and concentration camps, and were of various European and other descent. Anatomists generally welcomed the increased influx of “fresh material” for purposes of research and education of the growing numbers of medical students. No anatomist is known to have refused work with the bodies of NS victims. Other medical disciplines also made use of these bodies, among them were racial hygienists and neuropathologists. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the fields of anatomy, physical anthropology, and racial hygiene (eugenics) were closely related in their subject matter. Anatomists were involved in the biological foundation of racial hygiene, most prominently among them Eugen Fischer. The discipline was established as part of the medical curriculum after 1920. Racial hygiene became the scientific justification for NS policies that led to racial discrimination, involuntary sterilization and ultimately mass murder. Anatomists taught racial hygiene throughout the Third Reich and did research in this area. Some were actively involved in NS policies through propaganda and evaluations for the so-called Genetic Health Courts, whereas others became victims of their own science in that they were dismissed for racial reasons. 22:894–905, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64313/1/20873_ftp.pd