Chapter  7: Human Experimentation

Section 1. Case Study: Nazi Data

What if data is gathered concerning human ailments, diseases and therapy for them but the data was gathered by highly questionable or morally repugnant means?  Should the data be used or not?  Would using it condone or accept the manner in which it was gathered?  Would using it possibly encourage others to gather data in a similar way?

Case Title: Josef Mengele and Experimentation on Human Twins at Auschwitz

Description: Josef Mengele, aka Auschwitz's "Angel of Death",  had a fascination with twins. As a physician at Auschwitz, he conducted 'genetic experiments" on nearly 1500 sets of twins between the years 1943 and 1944. Twins were kept in separate barracks and fed better then most prisoners to insure they would not fall ill or die. Twins undergoing his experiment didn't know what the objectives were. Mengele's experiments were performed without anesthesia, transfusion of blood from one twin to another, isolation endurance, reaction to various stimuli, injections with lethal germs, sex change operations, the removal of limbs and organs, incestuous impregnations.

http://www.sturtevant.com/alex/mengele.htm

http://www.modcult.brown.edu/students/angell/mengele.html

http://www.gpc.peachnet.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/assignments/experiment/nazi.html

How he escaped justice for many years:

http://www.posner.com/articles/mengele.htm

Experiments on Twins:

http://www.history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa112397.htm

Resources on the Nazi Doctors

The Nuremburg Trials

Documents

Other Resources

Photographs

The Legacy of the Nazi Doctors

Bibliography

 

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