NAZI in the “Freezing” experiments. These experiments were

NAZI in the “Freezing” experiments. These experiments were

NAZI MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS Nazi Medical Experiments Jean Paul Marion-Landais Jackson Memorial School of Radiology Abstract The Nazi Dr. ’s performed a vast array of experiments on most if not all of the prisoners they held in their concentration camps. Such experiments caused a great deal of dilemmas across all the nations in the world. Headed by Dr.

Josef Mengele one of the most controversial individual that has ever worn the label of Medical Doctor, the experiments dealt with how the human body reacted to a wide array of conditions and procedures in order to enhance the German race as well as the Nazi army.Nazi Medical Experiments Adolph Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, brought to light the medical operations Nazi Germany was performing on Jews, Gypsies, and prisoners of war. The Nazi ideology of perfection caused the death of more than 200,000 people who were thought of as ill or and not pure as a result of the Euthanasia Program. Not only Jews, fell victims to the Nazi death strike. Slavs, Gypsies, Communist, Gay men, Religious groups, mentally and Physically disabled people, among them also native Germans who were seen as unfit according to the Nazi social and racial code. Nazi Human Experimentation) The medical experiments conducted in Nazi concentration camps were divided into two major categories. The first one, were experiments that were not completely ethically unacceptable and could have been thought of as beneficial however, the problem was in the way they were conducted; the methods made them ethically wrong.

These experiments dealt with rescue and surviving medical treatment. Designed to facilitate the survival of Axis ilitary personnel, scientist used prisoners to perform tests to determine the highest altitude a person can withstand in order to deploy a parachute in case of an emergency; also they used the prisoners as guinea pigs in the “Freezing” experiments. These experiments were executed by making the prisoners get in a freezing water tank until they started to suffer from hypothermia; another “Freezing” experiment involved a prisoner standing outdoors in the open totally nude, with temperatures below the freezing point.

The purpose of such experiments was to find an effective way to re-warm a body thus treating hypothermia. Some experiments were focused on developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses that were commonly encountered in the field. (Nazi Human Experimentation) In the German concentration camps such of Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Natzweiler, Buchenwald, and Neuengamme, immunization compounds were tested by the scientists for the prevention and treatment of infectious such as: Malaria, Typhus, Tuberculosis, Typhoid Fever, Yellow Fever, and infectious Hepatitis.The bone-grafting experiments and tests to verify the efficacy of newly developed sulfa (sulfanilamide) drugs were performed in the Ravensbrueck camp. These experiments consisted of inflicting a wound on a subject then infecting the wound with bacteria such as streptococcus, gas gangrene, and tetanus.

Afterwards the blood circulation would be interrupted by tying off blood vessels at both ends of the wound in order to create a comparable condition than that of a battlefield wound.The scientist would proceed to aggravate the infection by forcing wood shavings into the wounds, by using sulfa and other drugs to treat the infections, the Nazi scientist determined how effective the treatment would be in a battle situation. Subjects oftentimes perished as a result of such experiments.

Ravensbrueck camp was also known for conducting studies in relation to bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration along with bone transplantation from an individual to another.Parts of bones and muscle were removed from prisoners and transplanted onto another subject; afterwards the scientists would examine and evaluate how the bodies reacted to the procedures. At Natzweiler and Sachsenhausen, prisoners were exposed to phosgene and LOST (mustard) gas in order to test for possible antidotes. The malaria experiments were conducted in the concentration camp of Dachau.

These experiments were made in order to try to find an immunization for malaria. Healthy prisoners were exposed to malaria infected mosquitoes, and then different treatments were administered for effects and efficacy.Experiments to figure ways to turn sea water into potable water were also part of the Dachau’s agenda. Depriving some prisoners from all nourishments and then giving them the then chemically treated sea water. The Buchenwald concentration camp main experiments were poison based tests.

Scientists would plant poison on unsuspecting prisoners food rations, then dying or killed immediately so the scientists could perform autopsies to examine how the poison affected the bodies. (Experiments) The second category, were experiments that were blatantly wrong in all aspects.These experiments were based on the Nazis trying to prove their racist ideology and Jewish extermination using biology. On the never-ending search for racial perfection all sorts of experiments were conducted, the most infamous were performed by Dr. Josef Mangele in Auschwitz.

Mangele was in charge of meeting the new inmates and delegating which prisoners would be used for experiments and which would be taken directly to the gas chamber earning him the name of “Angel of Death. ” Mangele was fascinated with twins.He would select the twins and placed them in special barracks apart from the rest of the prisoner population. He made sure the twins were kept apart from all harsh duties, malnutrition and illnesses.

This wasn’t an act of humanism but rather a means to an end, to perform experiments. The fascination with twins lead Mengele to develop experiments such as: Attempting to change the eye color by injecting chemicals into the children’s eyes, sterilization and castrations, performing amputations and transplanting organs from twin to twin, never using anesthesia in any of the procedures.Another bizarre experiment often tried, was to try to create an artificial conjoined twin by sewing their veins together.

These sorts of operations never proved to be successful but rather malign to the children causing their hands to become extremely infected. Mangele transfused blood from one twin to the other, knowing they had different blood types and later recorded the effects, oftentimes such were, unbearable headaches, and extremely high fever. (Lynott) He also headed the serological experiments on Roma (Gypsies), as Werner Fischer did at Sachsenhausen.

These were experiments used to establish how different races withstood various contagious diseases. Oftentimes Dr. Mangele during roll calls would show up to assign a “special work detail” to the imprisoned women, fooling them into thinking that they would get a workload break by being part of such special detail, when in reality Dr. Mangele would use the chosen girls for sterilization and shock treatment experiments.

Most of those subjects were killed during the experiment or if they somehow survived it, they would be killed immediately in order to perform autopsies.In an ironic and morbid way Dr. Mangele had Jewish medical helpers perform most of the dissections. (Experiments) After the war Dr. Josef Mangele eluded the law and Nazi hunters by fleeing from Germany, to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Then Fleeing to Paraguay and eventually making his last trip to Embu, Brazil, where he suffered as stroke while swimming and drowned.

(Josef Mengele) The rest of the doctors that performed such experiments were either tried in the Nuremberg Trials of fled to different countries and continents. Nuremberg Trials) At the end of the Nuremberg Trials, twenty-three doctors and medical staff were tried and convicted for conducting brutal experiments on human beings against their will. Seven of the accused were sentenced to death for torture and planning to murder the victims, seven more were acquitted and four were sentenced to prison.

Many of the higher ranking Nazi medical staff were not tried for they committed suicide or fled to Europe. (Nuremberg Trials) References “Nuremberg Trials” (n. d. ). Retrieved from Nuremberg Trials – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web site: http://