Many people think that the Nazis were the first to conduct experiments on humans. This opinion is wrong. Both before and after the Nazis, scientists, doctors, psychologists often used people (including children!) As guinea pigs. There are many examples, but we will focus only on a few. And we will not talk about the Nazis today - enough has been written about them.
How to avoid the death penalty?
Meet the surgeon and venereologist Philippe Ricord. He managed to resolve the dispute between two scientific schools, but the methods of obtaining results were condemned by scientists around the world.
The entire beginning of the 19th century passed in disputes between venereologists. Some argued that syphilis and gonorrhea (at that time incurable) are caused by the same pathogen. Others argued that they were different. Philippe Ricord, a talented physician who studied surgery and venereology, proved that those who believe that the causative agents of these diseases are different are right.
From 1831 to 1837 he infected 700 people with syphilis, and 667 with gonorrhea. So the scientist proved that these two diseases have different pathogens. This brought him worldwide fame and the title of syphilidologist No. 1 and, as a result, enormous wealth (many wealthy patients were drawn to him for an appointment). Craft colleagues, however, condemned the methods of getting results. However, it is likely that the infected themselves were grateful to Ricor. After all, criminals sentenced to death became his experimental subjects. And by agreeing to participate in the experiment, most of them escaped from the guillotine, some were even released.
The most infamous experiment
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From 1932 to 1972, in the American city of Tuskegee, Alabama, a syphilis study group of the Venereal Diseases Unit of the Public Health Service investigated all stages of the disease. Moreover, the role of guinea pigs was exclusively illiterate blacks who were not informed that there were antibiotics that could cure them of syphilis.
On some poor fellows, new medicines were tested. Others were left without any help at all, simply recording how the disease gradually destroys their bodies. Some of the test subjects died. Many have infected their wives, they have sick children. The exact number of victims is unknown, but it can be assumed that there have been a lot of them over forty years. These studies, according to the Americans themselves, have become the most shameful in the entire history of the United States.
Obsessed Prison Doctor
San Quentin Prison is one of the most famous in the United States. From 1912 to 1950, the chief physician here was Leo Stanley, who performed horrific experiments on humans. However, he pursued the good goal of fighting crime.
Stanley really disliked criminals. The doctor believed that they had no right to reproduce. And so he tricked them into doing a vasectomy - surgical sterilization. Stanley promised that this would only increase the potency of the patients. By the way, the doctor seriously believed in his theory, according to which some internal organs influence the behavior of criminals. For violent prisoners, for example, he forcibly cut out the thyroid gland, claiming that it would make them obedient.
But the main thing that Stanley became famous for was the transplantation of testicles to prisoners. He sincerely believed that other people's testicles would increase the sexual strength of his patients, but at the same time nullify their criminal inclinations. The doctor transplanted the testicles of their executed comrades to rapists and pedophiles, and when there was a shortage of corpses in San Quentin, he used the organs of rams, goats, wild boars … During his career, Stanley performed about 10 thousand operations, mainly on prisoners. Although sometimes completely strangers, suffering from impotence, agreed to lie under his knife: the doctor assured them that they would regain sexual power.
Project 4.1
The Marshall Islands, after the war were under the tutelage of the UN and then transferred to the United States, became a platform for an inhuman experiment. It was here in 1946-1948 that the US military detonated 66 high-yield nuclear weapons. And in 1954, the most powerful of all their nuclear tests, the Castle Bravo, was carried out on Bikini Atoll.
They did not evacuate the natives. Later, the US authorities will call this a tragic mistake, but documents prove that the contamination of local residents with radiation was part of the plans of the researchers called "Project 4.1".
After the explosion, many natives were irradiated. Some were burned and lost their hair. The unfortunate were resettled in a kind of ghetto. Physicians came there with enviable regularity. But they did not provide assistance to the victims, but recorded the development of radiation sickness. Many Aboriginal people developed cancer, the number of miscarriages and the birth of stillborn children increased significantly.
Later, the US government recognized 1,865 people as victims of the trials (although there were many more) and compensated them $ 80 million.
Hepatitis for the mentally retarded
Doctors often go on inhuman experiments, but even among them, experiments on children stand apart. Like the one that was held at Willowbrook School, the largest boarding school for mentally retarded children in the United States. The conditions of detention here were very poor. There were six thousand children in the boarding school instead of the four thousand for which it was designed. The wards were fed poorly, and the educators treated them with incredible cruelty, to which the administration turned a blind eye.
Hepatitis in the boarding school was common, and therefore in the 1950s virologists Saul Krugman and Robert McCollum paid attention to the institution. At that time, scientists did not have accurate data on how hepatitis spreads, how many types exist. This is what virologists decided to find out, using mentally retarded children as guinea pigs.
Doctors deliberately injected their wards with hepatitis and recorded the development of the disease in detail. They noted how the skin and whites of the eyes turn yellow in children, the liver enlarges, how they start to vomit, they refuse to eat. At the same time, Krugman later stated that the infection of Willowbrook's students was quite reasonable and legal: all the same, with a high degree of probability, they would have contracted hepatitis if they picked it up from their comrades. However, with the help of doctors, the “probability fraction” was brought to 100 percent.
Only Senator Robert Kennedy, who visited the boarding school at the request of the parents of sick children, stopped the vile experiment. But the institution finally closed only in 1987. In fairness, it should be noted that, although the experiment was extremely unethical, Krugman and McCollum were able to isolate strains of hepatitis A and B, which later helped in the creation of a vaccine.
Childhood schizophrenia
Do not think that savage experiments on minors were performed only by men. Women scientists are just as cruel, even towards children.
American psychiatrist Loretta Bender studied babies with deviant, that is, different from the norm, behavior. This is now about a child who cannot sit still, they say that he is hyperactive, and in the 1940s it was believed that he was mentally disabled. Loretta Bender diagnosed these patients with childhood schizophrenia and actively treated them. This treatment consisted in the use of extremely painful electroconvulsive therapy, which in fact burns out certain areas of the brain. In addition, the children were given shock doses of LSD and other drugs that induce hallucinations.
Yes, there was no need to talk about any hyperactivity of babies after that. Because they turned into "vegetables" capable of only carrying out the simplest commands. Loretta herself assured that her treatment had a great effect on the children and did not help only two or three small patients. Many years later, it turned out that these experiments were sponsored by the CIA. The representatives of the department were extremely interested in the results.
Summing up, it is impossible not to notice: most of the experiments on people (we have described only a small part), which had an extremely negative effect on their physical and mental health, in the XX century - not counting, of course, Nazi Germany - were carried out in the United States. But a real breakthrough in pharmacology, psychology and medicine took place in this country. Americans have always been able to achieve their goals. And ethical standards are the tenth thing. Success will write off everything.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №4. Author: Andrey Leshukonsky