# Nazi human experimentation and science today **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 29, 2004, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649 "2004-06-29T02:32:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aankh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@Aankh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aankh)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/1 "2004-06-29T02:32:10Z")
The infamous Mengele and other Nazi doctors conducted numerous experiments on human subjects in the 1940s on war prisoners and concentration camp victims. I remember reading about [ul] [li]Pressure chamber tests[/li][li]Drug tests[/li][li]Cryogenic testing[/li][li]Disease testing (TB? Syphilis?)[/li][li]All sorts of surgeries, amputations and vivisections[/li][/ul] There were probably more lines of torture/research that I have missed out on here. My question is, have there been any developments in science since then, which owe their roots primarily to this Nazi experimentation? That is, any developments today that would absolutely not have been possible, had the Nazi researchers not put aside their sense of human compassion? ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/2 "2004-06-29T02:36:35Z")
No. In fact those “experiments” were scientifically invalid and useless as they were done with preconceived outcomes in mind, and without proper scientific protocols. ---
**Author:** ![Tenar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@Tenar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenar)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/3 "2004-06-29T02:38:58Z")
I seem to remember some controversy some years ago about using the “tests” involving immersing victims in freezing water for some practical use involving people stranded in open water. ---
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/4 "2004-06-29T03:12:30Z")
A few years ago I saw a historian from the National Holocaust Museum give a speech on the topic of Nazi experiments. I asked if anything that was learned in the experiments was actually useful. She replied that using the study results was commonly discussed in medical ethics classes, and that the only studies that were “useful” were some experiments on the effects of hypothermia. ---
**Author:** ![Aankh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@Aankh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aankh)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/5 "2004-06-29T08:14:40Z")
That’s interesting. Was no other, well, _useful_ physiological information gleaned from all that testing/torture? As regards the facts about hypothermia, I did some research and I found that a Dr.Finke acually published a paper on _Freezing Experiments with Human Beings_. Does (Did) this ever get cited in other scientific research papers? ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/6 "2004-06-29T11:03:00Z")
I asked this very question a while back but can’t seem to find it. The consensus was that the cold water studies were used by the Navy to estimate the effects/timing of hypothermia. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/7 "2004-06-29T16:09:27Z")
So, would using the experiments validate the Nazis, or would not using them simply waste the suffering of their victims? Yes, I can see how any college classroom would get a lot of mileage out of that debate. What was the consensus of the medical community when the experiments were first discovered? Have opinions changed over the decades? ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/8 "2004-06-29T18:17:23Z")
[This rather good undergraduate paper](http://www.stanford.edu/group/STS/techne4.html) discusses the ethical issues in some detail. On the hypothermia experiments it notes: > [@](#): > > If studies lack scientific quality, ethical considerations become moot; publishers should not print them on scientific grounds. Dr. Robert Berger (1990) argues that this is the case with the Nazi hypothermia studies. Few primary data exist; only communications and a comprehensive report survive. These show critical study shortcomings in scientific content and credibility. Specifically, primary investigators Drs. Rascher, Holzloehner, and Finke failed to record basic subject variables such as age and level of nutrition, and to specify the numbers of subjects who underwent immersion while naked, clothed, conscious, or anesthetized. Contemporary researchers point out that these omissions severely limit the applicability and generalizability of the data (Berger, 1990; Hayward, in Moe, 1984). Also, inconsistencies and apparent data falsifications and fabrications plague the report, and many conclusions suffer from a dearth of supporting facts. Berger contends that Rasher lacked the qualifications to carry out the studies. He concludes that the Dachau hypothermia studies contain “all the ingredients of a scientific fraud” (1440) and should be rejected on purely scientific grounds. > > … > > Berger’s argument that the Nazi hypothermia data contain numerous flaws seems well-grounded in careful analysis. To conclude that the studies offer absolutely no information of worth, however, may be too harsh. Some researchers view selective parts of it as useful to their work. John S. Hayward of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, for example, says that while he would not trust many parts of the data, the general linear shape of the cooling curve as a person nears death appears valid. Robert Harnett of Louisiana Technical University admits the weaknesses of the Nazi data, but insists upon their usefulness for corroboration (Moe, 1984). Dr. Robert Pozos of the University of Washington goes further; he argues that Nazi research on hypothermia, while cruel and often fatal, was scientifically sound and the only source of information about human exposure to extremely cold temperatures. These data may help researchers understand hypothermia and establish successful rewarming techniques; they also store information we will never again attain in an ethical world (Firth, 1989; Moe, 1984). It also mentions phosgene toxicity as another area where some researchers have considered using Nazi data. Another aspect is that many concentration victims were used to prepare medical specimens, most of which remained in the collections of German medical schools until investigations in the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/9 "2004-06-29T18:39:25Z")
> [@AndrewT](#): > > No. In fact those “experiments” were scientifically invalid and useless as they were done with preconceived outcomes in mind, and without proper scientific protocols. No, many scientific experiments are done with preconceived outcomes in mind. But _real_ scientists recognize when the experimental results don’t match their preconceived outcomes, and change their theories. For example, the Michaelson-Morley experiments were intended to prove the existance of the ‘ether’ that lightwaves travel upon, and they re-did it a few times before accepting the fact that ether doesn’t exist! The biggest problem with using the results of Nazi experiments is that the subjects were generally in very bad initial health (starved, beaten, etc.), so that the results are not comparable to humans in normal condition. So the experimental results are often worthless. ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/10 "2004-06-29T23:49:23Z")
I would say that in one case, it is at least 1% possible and that such a charge has been reasonably been leveled: From the 30’s thru the 90’s there were really only 2 standards for advanced anatomy textbooks. “Gray’s Anatomy” being one and “Pernkopf’s Anatomy” the other. There was no doubt the Pernkopf, a Vienna U guy, had been about as big a Nazi as you could be & not be hung. That fact never affected the acceptance of his work. In the 90’s a charge, in letter to JAMA, was leveled that his work was based – at least a part of it from the 40’s – on pictures & drawings based on concentration camp victims. The Austrian Government & Vienna U investigated the charge and said (essentially but using this %) that they were 99% certain that Pernkopf did not use Holocaust victims in his research. However the controversy surrounding it never really went away (some ’30-‘40’s editions of the book were festooned with swastika’s and SS bolts, the whole 9 yards) & it becomes hard to separate Pernkopf from his work which undoubtedly \*\*\*did \*\* \* advance medical knowledge in the training of 3 generations of physicians, and his politics - he more or less led the purge of Jews from Vienna U in the late 30’s, even before the Anschluss he was a BIG Nazi & major Hitler fan. So there is a small chance, in this case, that the answer to the OP is “yes”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/11 "2004-06-30T02:15:34Z")
I would say that while the Nazi experiments were obviously immoral, using the data from them is not necessarily so. After all, nobody is suggesting that using data collected from people who accidentally drowned in cold water is unethical. This is because everyone realizes the scientists conducting the study did not cause the victims to drown. So by similar reasoning, scientists who were not involved in the intentional drowning of victims should not be forced to assume the ethical burden for murders they did not cause. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/12 "2004-06-30T11:53:44Z")
The counter-argument to that, **Little Nemo** , is that using the data tends to validate and encourage the use of the unethical techniques. Using the data from accidental drowning victims will neither increase the drowning rate nor inspire people to feel better about their accidental drowning. But using the data from Nazi human experimentation tends to encourage both past and future Nazis. Mengele: “See? I may have been somewhat cruel in my methods, but my experiments advanced human knowledge and may even save countless lives!” Mengele’s spiritual son: “Cool! And since nobody else will do these sorts of experiments, I’ve got a good chance of learning things nobody else knows, and advance science even further!” ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-human-experimentation-and-science-today/252649/13 "2004-06-30T19:01:49Z")
It doesn’t matter whether using Nazi data is moral or immoral, ethical or unethical. What matters is that the data is pretty much useless, of little value scientifically. Because the human subjects were in such a weakened condition at the start of the Nazi experiments, data from them is not applicable to people in normal health. The data is no good. To science, that is all that matters!