Nazi Medical Experiments

Since the ending of World War II, great controversy has arisen regarding the potential use of the Nazi doctors’ medical experiment findings. Nazi leaders instructed the doctors to perform sickening, gruesome, and terrifying experiments on the inmates of the concentration camps all throughout Europe. These unlawful experiments led the German medical community to gain vast amounts of knowledge regarding the physical limits of the human body under severe circumstances. According to Joel Dimsdale, author and Professor at the University of California, “these observations [gathered from the Nazi experiments] were kept under wraps for decades and there remains controversy even now about what these [experiments] revealed…” (Dimsdale). One of the biggest …show more content…
These participants were typically forced to be a part of the study; however, doctors were able to convince some participants to go along with the study by making false promises that were rarely fulfilled, these promises included being released from the camp or commutation of the death sentence” (Berger). According to Berger, during this trial, the subjects were men of all different races, religion, and nationalities, and some were Russian prisoners of war (Berger). These men were then subjected to being submerged in a tank filled with iced water where the body would go into a state of hypothermia. After hypothermia was reached the doctors would then try different methods of rewarming the body to see which, if any, would work the best on their troops. Unfortunately, much of this data was destroyed before the Allied troops were able to take over and invade the German concentration camps.
Some people believe that the medical and scientific community should be allowed to use the Nazi doctor’s findings to further the knowledge of the scientific and medical community. According to Isabel Wilkerson’s article from the May 21, 1989 publishing of The New York Times, the findings “should be used if the circumstances under which it was conducted are acknowledged and could be dedicated to the memory of the …show more content…
This information may lead to other discoveries as well and perhaps fill in the gaps of research that scientists and other physicians have begun. As stated earlier, some people believe that it would dishonor the unwilling victims to use the data gained throughout these experiments because it would make light of this horrific situation (Angell). However, if we, as a medical and scientific community, choose to not use this information to better our knowledge on topics such as hypothermia treatment also be dishonoring the victims? Would it not be a dishonor to let all these findings go to waste and never be used in a medical journal? If this information were to go to waste it would mean that these poor innocent men, women, and children would have died without a purpose. In her article, Angell states that “we should redeem whatever small benefits we can from this nightmare”