Leah Perkins Professor Sarah Cook English 1102 26 March 2024 Research Review Nazi scientists conducted a vast list of experiments on children and adults imprisoned during World War II. The experiments ranged from endurance tests of the human body to brutal and sadistic medical procedures. Today, modern scientists question the morality of using data found in these coerced studies. Over half of my ten resources were peer-reviewed, scholarly articles from esteemed academic and medical journals. These sources, written by doctors and professors, delve into the history of “unnecessary” experiments and discuss the ethical use of their findings. In addition to these scholarly findings, I have also accumulated a few other sources that are more personal
…show more content…
The article, “Painful and Sometimes Deadly Experiments which Nazi Doctors Carried Out on Children”, written by professor Paul Weindling, shares the stories of the children who endured the barbaric experiments. Weindling discusses forced sterilization under the guise of racial inferiority in addition to children being injected with vaccines then being pushed to their limits of starvation, hypothermia, or luminal poisoning. Most children’s brains were collected and dissected in the context of Nazi euthanasia. ‘Racial Purification’ is listed several times in several different articles about Nazi coerced experimentation, as it grabbed the attention of the medical and social community at the time and changed German ideation and criteria of what a ‘Healthy society’ looked like. This became largely popular in the area around the 1920’s and continued to expand over the first world war. While discussing several other experiments and how each subject was selected, Weindling proves that the prisoners were not selected for their genetics but instead for the Nazi’s “racial justification for implementing the Holocaust and the need for racial research” because the doctors specifically chose prisoners who ‘stood out’ or had physical anomalies (Weindling …show more content…
Many of my collected sources discuss this question from varying viewpoints. To begin, the article, “In the Name of Humanity: Nazi Doctors and Human Experiments in German Concentration Camps”, written by Daan De Leeuw, very thoroughly discusses the motives behind the crimes committed by ‘renowned’ physicians and researchers who took part in the experiments. During the Nuremberg trials, many of the doctors facing conviction used the excuse of following orders and doing what they were told, however research conducted by Robert Proctor, an American historian and professor, claims that, “doctors did not have to be ordered, but voluntarily conducted experiments on other humans” in hopes to further their careers and reputations (Leeuw 225). Doina Cosman’s article, “The Nuremberg Code on Human Experimentation”. A Historical Overview”, discusses how patients should be treated ethically and always be asked for consent during medical procedures. Even though human experiments are necessary for the growth of medical knowledge, and should be completed to help doctors and scientists learn how to help save more lives and cure more diseases, they must be done with the patient's best interest in
The article, “Painful and Sometimes Deadly Experiments which Nazi Doctors Carried Out on Children”, written by professor Paul Weindling, shares the stories of the children who endured the barbaric experiments. Weindling discusses forced sterilization under the guise of racial inferiority in addition to children being injected with vaccines then being pushed to their limits of starvation, hypothermia, or luminal poisoning. Most children’s brains were collected and dissected in the context of Nazi euthanasia. ‘Racial Purification’ is listed several times in several different articles about Nazi coerced experimentation, as it grabbed the attention of the medical and social community at the time and changed German ideation and criteria of what a ‘Healthy society’ looked like. This became largely popular in the area around the 1920’s and continued to expand over the first world war. While discussing several other experiments and how each subject was selected, Weindling proves that the prisoners were not selected for their genetics but instead for the Nazi’s “racial justification for implementing the Holocaust and the need for racial research” because the doctors specifically chose prisoners who ‘stood out’ or had physical anomalies (Weindling …show more content…
Many of my collected sources discuss this question from varying viewpoints. To begin, the article, “In the Name of Humanity: Nazi Doctors and Human Experiments in German Concentration Camps”, written by Daan De Leeuw, very thoroughly discusses the motives behind the crimes committed by ‘renowned’ physicians and researchers who took part in the experiments. During the Nuremberg trials, many of the doctors facing conviction used the excuse of following orders and doing what they were told, however research conducted by Robert Proctor, an American historian and professor, claims that, “doctors did not have to be ordered, but voluntarily conducted experiments on other humans” in hopes to further their careers and reputations (Leeuw 225). Doina Cosman’s article, “The Nuremberg Code on Human Experimentation”. A Historical Overview”, discusses how patients should be treated ethically and always be asked for consent during medical procedures. Even though human experiments are necessary for the growth of medical knowledge, and should be completed to help doctors and scientists learn how to help save more lives and cure more diseases, they must be done with the patient's best interest in