10 Most Terrifying Human Experiments In
History
Experimenting on humans is typically seen as
science fiction. In Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game,” a classic
adventure story from 1924, the mad Russian General Zaroff uses a private island
to hunt down humans. Ennui brought this on. After all, after man has mastered
the hunting of all other creatures, only the most dangerous game (humanity
itself) is left.
The
following 10 cases of human experimentation provide evidence of the depravity
of certain human beings.
10. Radioactive Women
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via: upload.wikimedia.org
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Called a “nutrition study,” researchers at
Nashville’s Vanderbilt University exposed some 820 pregnant women to radioactive
iron between the years of 1945 and 1947. Funded by the U.S. Public Health
Service, which was interested in improving scientific knowledge about the
potential effects of nuclear radiation following an atomic attack, the
scientists at Vanderbilt fed the women “vitamin drinks” under the lie that
the concoctions would be good for their unborn children.
After providing the drinks, the researchers tracked
the movement of the radioactive isotopes through the body until it ended up in
the placenta. Years later, between 1963 and 1964, researchers at Vanderbilt
re-examined the cases and claimed that the experiment had not resulted in
increased cancer risks for the patients. However, approximately seven children
connected to the experiment died from some form of cancer, while many of the
female subjects suffered hair and tooth loss, rashes, and cancer.
9. The Mustard Gas
Experiments
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via: newshour-tc.pbs.org
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Throughout the 20th century, service members were frequently
used as human guinea pigs for several different experiments. During World War
II, the U.S. military carried out a series of secret experiments on its own
soldiers and sailors. The goal of these experiments was to test the effects of
mustard gas. During World War I, mustard gas had been a scourge that had taken
the lives of thousands of Allied and Central Powers troops. Use of the chemical
weapon was considered a war crime by many.
In 1943, the U.S. Navy asked several teenagers
fresh out of boot camp if they’d be willing to participate in an undisclosed
study. The project mostly took place at the Naval Research Laboratory in
Washington, D.C. There, the naive volunteers discovered that they would be
exposed to mustard gas. The U.S. Army conducted its own program, which included
locking soldiers in wooden gas chambers while mustard gas was pumped inside.
All told, 60,000 enlisted men partook in the experiment. Many of these men were
chosen specifically because they were black.
Although declassified in 1993, many veterans who
were exposed to mustard gas have not received their promised benefits from the
VA.
8. The Milgram
Experiment
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via: alpha.aeon.co
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Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram wanted to test
the limits of obedience. When the experiment commenced in the summer of 1961,
many academics were interested in discovering the root of the so-called “authoritative
personality.” Spurned on by Marxist cultural critics like Hannah Arendt
(creator of the later “banality of evil” concept) as well as reports about the
atrocities of Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, psychologists like
Milgram decided to test the moral strength of everyday people. Indeed, Milgram
specifically cited the Nazis when he posed the question: “Could it be that
(Adolf) Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just
following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?”
Following a newspaper advertisement requesting
volunteers, Milgram began using Yale students as either “learners” or
“teachers.” Furthermore, two subjects were divided into separate rooms. One was
an actor, while the other was tasked with shocking the other person
after every question they got wrong. The individuals could not see each
other, but could hear each other. A minority of “teachers” quit the experiment
when the believed that they were hurting the other person. Most continued to
increase voltage when they were told that they would suffer no
consequences for their actions. In the scenario, some “teachers” continued to
shock the “learners” past their supposed deaths.
7. The Stanford
Prison Experiment
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via: health-equity.pitt.ed
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One of the most infamous experiments in American
history began on August 17, 1971. In Palo Alto, California, home of Stanford
University, several college-age males were picked up by police officers who
accused them of violating Penal Codes 211 and 459 (armed robbery and burglary).
The suspects were handled roughly, searched, and thrown into police cars with
sirens wailing. The men were then booked and put into holding cells located in
the basement of the psychology building at Stanford.
These “suspects” were the 24 volunteers for the
experiment who had been selected based on their positive mental and
physical health. With the flip of a coin, half of these men became prison
guards, while the others were confined day and night to cells. According to popular
belief, the men who were assigned to be prison guards began abusing and
humiliating prisoners without instruction. In turn, the prisoners passively
accepted their abuse with little protest. In truth, the prison guards acted in
ways that had been predetermined by their scripted roles. Despite this, the
experiment, which was supposed to last for two weeks, was terminated after just
six days. The Stanford Prison Experiment is often held up as clear evidence
that normal people can easily become tyrants.
6. Tuskegee Syphilis
Experiment
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via: health-equity.pitt.ed
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In 1932, the historically black Tuskegee Institute
began a partnership with the Public Health Service in order to see if they
could combat high rates of syphilis among African Americans. The ultimate goal
of the experiment was to chart the trajectory of syphilis in the human body.
The experiment included 600 male subjects, 399 with
syphilis and 201 disease-free. None of these men consented to participating in
the study, however. Researchers calmed their fears by simply telling them that
they were designing a treatment for “bad blood.” The infected men were
improperly treated and were allowed to waste away. Most received certain
benefits, from free medical check-ups, free meals, to burial insurance, but few
got better after the experiment. Furthermore, the study was only supposed to
last for six months. It wound up lasting for forty years. Even after the
introduction of penicillin in 1947, none of the subjects were treated with the
possibly life-saving drug.
5. Eugenic
Sterilization
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via: collections.countway.harvard.edu
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Before the Nazis made it a dirty word, eugenic
science was supported by many American liberals and Progressives. Indeed, many
Progressive reformers helped to push through sterilization laws under the
auspices of treating inheritable diseases. In 1907, Indiana became the first
state to legalize eugenic sterilization. During the 1920s, eugenic
sterilization became more widely accepted all across the United States.
In several states, sterilizations were enacted to
see if they could have any positive effect on crime reduction or the reduction
of mental disabilities. Race also proved to be a factor, as several eugenic
supporters believed that forced sterilizations could improve “genetic stock”
through the elimination of “inferior” genes. In 1927, eugenic sterilization
went before the Supreme Court in Buck v. Bell. Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
ultimately ruled in favor of the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck, a native
of Charlottesville, Virginia who had been sterilized because she had given
birth at seventeen following a rape, because “her welfare and that of society
will be promoted by her sterilization.”
4. Human Experiments
In North Korea
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via: d.europe.newsweek.com
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The communist state of North Korea is more or less
a great mystery. Most of what we know about the isolated nation comes from the
reports given by civilian and military defectors. One defector, who was former
member of the large North Korean Army, told Western reporters that the
military frequently used children to test chemical and biological weapons.
Specifically, Im Cheon-yong claimed that mentally handicapped children were
targeted for these tests.
Elsewhere, word has leaked about the various camps
maintained by the North Korean government, some of which are actually located
in China and Russia. One such camp, known as Camp 22, is nominally a labor
camp. However, according to survivors, the starving prisoners are often used
for ghastly experiments. According to at least one source, Camp 22 contains
50,000 prisoners, including thousands of women and children. Most do not
survive their stays at the camp, with many dying at the hands of openly abusive
guards and army officers.
3. Soviet Super
Soldiers
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| via: upload.wikimedia.org |
As can be seen, Soviet authorities were not averse
to “cracking a few eggs.” During the 1920s, Stalin tapped the Academy of
Science in Moscow in order to create a “living war machine.” The
biologist Illya Ivanov decided that splicing ape DNA with human DNA would
produce a Soviet super soldier. Using orangutan sperm and female subjects,
Ivanov attempted to breed half-ape, half-human hybrids. “Woman G” was to be
impregnated with orangutan sperm, but the ape died before the experiment could
be completed. Eventually, Dr. Ivanov was purged by Stalin.
2. The Experiments of
Unit 731 and Unit 100
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Via: www.unit731.org
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In 1925, the Empire of Japan created Unit 731 and
Unit 100 in order to carry out chemical and biological experiments on human
subjects. During World War II, these secretive units were led by
Lieutenant-General Ishii Shiro, an army medical officer and a microbiologist
with a degree from Kyoto Imperial University. Along with 3,000 researchers, the
Japanese Army deployed Unit 731 and Unit 100 to occupied China, were the groups
set up headquarters in the northern city of Harbin.
Although the full extent of the experiments carried
out by these units is not known, reports from eyewitnesses and survivors paint
a very gruesome picture. The units specialized in vivisection experiments, most
of which were carried out on non-Japanese subjects, including Koreans, Chinese,
and Russian civilians. Some of these subjects were pregnant women; others were
still alive when the operations began.
Gathering evidence points out that as many as
10,000 people may have been subjected to these experiments. Furthermore, newly
released evidence clearly shows that Unit 731 and Unit 100 tortured their
subjects and submitted captured Allied soldiers and airmen to such horrific
experiences as pressure chambers, being buried alive, and having air injected
into their veins.
1. The Experiments of
Josef Mengele
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Via: villains.wikia.com
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Nicknamed the “Angel of Death,” Dr. Josef Mengele
was an SS officer who used the Nazi concentration and death camps to perform
widespread human experiments. Mengele performed most of his horrible
experiments at the infamous death camp Auschwitz in occupied Poland.
Some of Dr. Mengele’s experiments included
subjecting prisoners to high pressure and high altitude. Inside of these
chambers, where Mengele and others oscillated low pressure with high pressure,
many subjects died or suffered debilitating physical injuries. Others were
forced to endure injuries suffered from incendiary devices full of phosphorous.
Many people died so that the Nazis could find out the usefulness of certain
chemical weapons. Along with phosphorous, Mengele also subjected his patients
to mustard gas, freezing water, and malaria injections.
Most infamous of all, Mengele had a fascination
with twins. As such, twins who arrived at Auschwitz were immediately sent to
Dr. Mengele for experimentation. Some twins had their organs removed without
being put under anesthesia first. If one twin died, then the other was killed.
One survivor recalled that she and her sister were locked in separate boxes and
given painful injections in their backs. The goal there was to see if pain and
isolation could change eye color.
Dr. Mengele managed to survive the war and died in
Brazil in 1979.
Sources: bbc.com
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Wow scary...
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