How Did Nazi Doctors Use Unethical Medical Experiments

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The Hippocratic Oath that doctors swear by states: “I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgement; I will keep them from harm and injustice.” This oath was broken many times by SS doctors during the second world war. Nazi doctors conducted unethical medical experiments on a multitude of prisoners throughout the course of the war, and in the process they found no beneficial results. Concentration camps were the sites of these heinous crimes against humanity, and many people lost their lives in torturous conditions with no justifiable reasoning. These experiments included high altitude research in low-pressure chambers, freezing to the point of hypothermia, the forced consumption of sea water for weeks at a time, purposeful infection of diseases such as typhus and gangrene, and organ regeneration. Many more studies were conducted alongside these, all of which shared the same dehumanizing approaches, and all of which also yielded no results.

Initially, in the March of 1942, high altitude research testing began in Dachau Concentration Camp. These tests were intended to be for the benefit of the German Air Force, determining the maximum altitude a pilot could safely parachute from. The
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These experiments were only very few of the many Nazi medical testing. Thousands of people died unnecessary deaths and the Nazis covered it up by saying it was all for the greater good of their people and the military. None of the tests yielded any useful results, mainly because of the apathy during them. The doctors would rarely record information, which leads one to believe that they did not do these for research, but merely to satiate their own twisted desires. Hatred and prejudice drove the atrocity known as the Holocaust, and it was no exception with the so-called “experiments” that were