Murderous Medicine - Nazi Doctors, Human experimentation and Typhus

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About Murderous Medicine - Nazi Doctors, Human

Product Description More than 1.5 million concentration camp prisoners died of typhus, a preventable disease. Despite advances in public health measures to control and prevent typhus outbreaks, German doctors, fueled by their racist ideology and their medieval approach to the disease, used the disease as a form of biological warfare against Jews, Slavs, and gypsies. Jewish hospitals in ghettos were burned--along with patients and staff--if typhus was present. In concentration camps, even suspected typhus cases were killed in the gas chambers or through intracardiac injections. Typhus vaccines were tested on prisoners deliberately infected with typhus. Only a handful of doctors were ever prosecuted for their crimes. Against all odds, Jewish health providers struggled to avoid the worst through innovative steps to save lives. Despite the removal of their equipment, drugs, and other resources, they organized health care and sanitary hygienic measures. Doctors were forced to conceal cases, falsify diagnoses and cause of death in order to save lives. This important study explores the role of the International Red Cross in typhus epidemics during and after World War I and World War II. It details the widespread complicity of foreign companies in the Nazi typhus research. Finally, the author stresses the importance of monitoring and holding accountable the medical profession, researchers, and drug companies that continue to invest in research on biological agents as weapons of war. Review I can't say that I "enjoyed" your book, but I had to keep reading a small portion every night. To my mind, it is the best book written on the subject. I will make sure that I inform teachers and lecturers of the paperback edition. --Bernard Korbman, Director, Jewish Holocaust Center, Melbourne, Australia In this book this terrible situation is systematically illuminated. It is written for a broad audience, and is an easily understandable presentation of the epidemiology, medical history and political use of typhus. The essential context and research on typhus is clearly presented. The author also describes the struggle of the Jewish prisoner-doctors against the typhus, as well as their exploitation throughout the Nazi occupation. The analytical distance that Naomi Baumslag - a respected pediatrician from Georgetown University Medical School - brings is admirable, as is her dedication to human rights and engaging the role of medicine and the political use of public health. --German Medical Journal May 2006 Murderous Medicine is an important book, a valuable contribution to the literature about Nazi "medicine"; (the qualification is deliberate, as the Nazis' "medicine"; and "experiments"; were neither; they were bestial and torturous, ethically and morally bankrupt). The book should occupy a place on the shelf. ... Murderous Medicine forces us to remember, and hopefully to reflect. ... Today's headlines and newscasts remind us that we still have much to remember and learn. That is why this book is important. We are all responsible. --JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association March 1, 2006 "The central message here is the betrayal of the medical profession of its trust as a healing profession. Evil can never be done so that good may come of it. How often is that dictum violated with the Nazis and the other twentieth century physicians who have allowed arguments, from survival, patriotism, or exigency to drown out the voice of ethics." --Edmund Pellegrino, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Ethics, Center for Clinical Bioethics, Georgetown UniversityI can't say that I "enjoyed" your book, but I had to keep reading a small portion every night. To my mind, it is the best book written on the subject. I will make sure that I inform teachers and lecturers of the paperback edition. --Bernard Korbman, Director, Jewish Holocaust Center, Melbourne, Australia About the Author DR. NAOMI BAUMSLAG is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at George