Experiments conducted by Japanese 731 units on humans
View of Unit 731. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Japan used chemical and biological weapons throughout Manchuria from 1932 to the end of World War II. Among them, Unit 731 was the unit that fought the biochemical war of imperial Japan. 731 conducted an unforgivable experiment by Koreans and Chinese. In addition, 731 tested prisoners from other countries, including Manchuria, the Soviet Union, the United States of America, Britain and Australia, in Pingfang, Hanchen, Changchun and other regions of China.
Unit 731 Composition
Unit 731 consisted of the General Affairs Department, the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th, the education department, the self-help department, and the medical department. The Ministry of General Affairs was responsible for the management and dissection of Maruta. Part 1 was in charge of bacterial research, Part 2 was in charge of practical research, Part 3 was in charge of bacterial culture and pottery bomb manufacturing, and Part 4 was in charge of bacteria manufacturing. The medical department conducts medical examinations of unit members and human body experiments of Maruta. In addition, it operated 4 branch offices, 1 experimental site, and a direct aviation unit, with a total size of about 3,000.
Shiro Ishii. Source: Wikimedia Commons
When talking about 731, commander Shiro Ishii is indispensable. Shiro Ishii graduated from the School of Medicine at Kyoto University, then went on to become the head of the Kanto Army's quarantine and water supply department in August 1940 after going through an army medical doctor. After embezzling public money, he was relegated to the commander of the 1st Army military commander, but returned to Unit 731 when he was promoted to lieutenant general of the army army.
Maruta and special class
Maruta means'log' in Japanese. In 731, the subject of the human experiment was called Maruta. Maruta was mainly an anti-Manchurian anti-Japanese activist captured by the military police, and there were many Koreans and Russians in addition to Chinese.
The poster for the Chinese movie'Maruta'.
When carrying the test subjects, it is said that the special transport to Pingfang, China, was called'extra-class'. It is said that it was a name specially designated by the military to procure test subjects. Kiyoshi Kawashima, who was one of the members of the 731 members, admitted that women and children were also held in a special prison at the Khabarovsk trial in 1949. It is said that at least 8,000 people were transferred to the special class to be tested, and none of them could survive.
Unit 731, including Shiro Ishii, was proud to be the only unit created by the emperor's decree. The distorted pride has led to terrible human experiments to make biochemical weapons. 31 types of experiments are conducted on the subjects without any guilty consciousness, regardless of means and methods.
1. Bacterial infection test
731 injected various bacteria into test subjects or mixed with dumplings and tested its toxicity. Subjects were deliberately infected with dysentery, and tetanus was injected for observation. We put people with and without germ masks on separate stakes, and then sprinkled with clearing gas to closely observe the change.
In particular, 731 has been experimenting with plague bacteria a lot. Plague bacteria are widely known as'black death'. It spread to the Mediterranean coast of the 14th century, France, Germany, England and Northern Europe, killing more than a third of the European population in four years. 731, trying to apply this to the vicious slaughter battle, develops a'fest flea'. Instead of sprinkling the fungus itself as it is, it is said that fleas, which are vectors, were infected with plague bacteria, mixed in a buffer, or sprayed in a ceramic bomb. In fact, it is said that most of the bacteria sprayed in China were the plague bacteria. Norbert H. Pell, who had been dispatched from the United
States, reported to his home country on June 30, 1947:
"The methods of breeding fleas and infecting fleas through mice have been studied extensively.
Plague fleas survive about 30 days under optimal conditions.
In the meantime, it has been found to maintain infectious power.
In a room with 20 fleas per square meter, the test subject was freely released.
Six out of ten were infected and four died."
It is said that anthrax experiment was also conducted. Norbert H. Pell reported the anthrax bomb test as follows:
"People were tied, helmets on, and armor on.
Those that are fixed on the ground and exploded, those with a timed detonator dropped from an airplane, etc.
Experimented with various bombs."
For field experiments with other bombs, I wrote:
"The bacteria were found in the blood of 6 out of 10 people, and it was estimated that 4 of them were infected from the respiratory tract.
All four died.
The distance between these four people and nine bombs exploded at once was only 26m."
Unit 731 also dropped germ bombs and sprayed germs. On October 4, 1940, the plague was dropped on the invasion of China, inflicting over 1,500 casualties, and on November 4, 1940, the plague flea was sprayed on Changde, China. It is said that the plague spread to surrounding villages, causing more than 7,000 casualties. Even the Japanese army was no exception. In 1941, 713 attacked with cholera bacteria in Changtai, China. Up to 1,700 Japanese soldiers were killed in this wind.
2. Extreme environmental exposure
Frostbite test of Unit 731. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Unit 731 is subject to extreme conditions such as vacuum, starvation, chemical gases, and freezing experiments to determine the reaction and viability of the human body. In a room at minus 50 degrees Celsius, the subjects are left unattended until they die. Hisato Yoshimura, who served in Unit 731 from 1938 to the defeat of 1945, deliberately froze the subjects' limbs and feet to study the frostbite, observing the skin temperature and the volume of fingers.
After the war, Yoshimura republished the results of this study in an English paper. Among the subjects of the experiment were newborns 3 days old. However, Yoshimura said that the subjects' limbs were frozen in an English paper and no indication of indicators were included.
A frostbite resulting from a frostbite experiment. Source: YouTube/JTBC Culture
In addition, Surgeon Kazuhiru Tanimasu conducted a frostbite experiment in the early morning of February 6, 1941, under various conditions, such as putting on wet socks or gloves to test subjects, then drinking alcohol or administering atropine.
We also experimented with drinking only water. Yoshio Kurihara, who served in the Dogo unit from 1935 to 1936, testified: "I experimented with the military subordinate Satoshi Sugawara for how many days he would live if he only drank water. As a result, he lived 45 days with normal water and 33 days with distilled water. A person who ate only distilled water appealed for'delicious water' as his death was nearing. did"
3. Medical practice
Unit 731 doctors are conducting a brutal experiment. Source: Wikimedia Commons
In May-June 1945, Fukujiro Ishiyama, the 1st Surgery Department at Kyushu Imperial University's School of Medicine, and his students conducted a surgical experiment on eight prisoners of the B29 top soldiers who were shot down. The contents of the operation are as follows.
On May 17, all lungs of two prisoners were removed.
On May 22, 1 in 2 prisoners had pre-gastric removal. After bleeding by compressing the aorta and stopping the heart, open thoracic heart massage, heart surgery, and the other one incise the epigastric region, remove the gallbladder, and remove the single lobe of the liver.
May 25th, brain surgery (tertiary nerve block) for one prisoner
On June 2nd, about 500cc of blood was collected from the right coronary artery to 1 out of 3 prisoners, and then 300cc of substitute blood was injected. Pulmonary sinus surgery for one, gallbladder extraction for the other, 200cc injection of substitute blood, hepatic resection, open chest heart massage, myocardial incision and suture, aortic compression hemostasis
A person named Tanimura, who experimented with frostbite, also conducted field experiments on the subjects. Tanimura organized a winter hygiene research group to do outdoor exercises that teach about surgery, hemostasis, and blood transfusions in tents. Eight Chinese people were used as biological materials. It is said that these eight were killed after experiments or surgery and were used for vivisection or shot.
Subject being sacrificed in the experiment of Unit 731. Source: Wikimedia Commons
In addition to this, there was also an experiment using the blood of the subjects. We also conducted a bleeding experiment in which human blood was squeezed out by rotating a person with a high-speed centrifuge, and a human blood experiment in which human and horse blood were exchanged.
No one is punished
World War II ended and the war ended with the defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan. However, the people of Unit 731 were not punished. This is because the United States did not sue the officers of the unit in exchange for handing over all the experimental data conducted by Unit 731 to the United States. Laboratories in the United States are not allowed to test humans for ethical reasons. Therefore, the results of 731 human experiments have been used in many ways in the United States. On August 1, 1947, the U.S. government promoted war crime immunity. In December of the same year, Edwin V. Hill of the United States closed the report with the following words:
"This is data obtained by Japanese scientists over the years and millions of dollars.
This information about the infection and outbreak of certain bacteria in humans is not available in our laboratory.
Because there is a question whether we can do experiments on humans.
These data have been carried out with a total amount of 250,000 yen until today,
This is a small amount compared to the actual cost of the study.
In addition, the U.S. paid salaries to the main offenders of biological experiments, hired them as experimental personnel, and even requested lectures to American chemical warfare agents."
Scientists in Unit 731 tried to cover up the fact that they had experimented with humans after the war was defeated. Shiro Ishii is said to have destroyed the evidence by slaughtering prisoners remaining in the unit and releasing experimental mice when Japan surrendered to the US military. Shiro Ishii was also indemnified for handing over experimental data to the United States after ordering troops to keep secrets.
It is also said that the Japanese medical community has awarded Ph.D. degrees to officials in Unit 731. There are several papers written by Unit 731. Among them, it is said that some of them have passed the thesis as a dissertation in the military medical school quarantine research report written in the days of Unit 731. The title of thesis written by Unit 731 is as follows.
A study on the staining method for plague bacteria in tissues (Keio, 1946)
On the preventive effect of tetanus and kissoid (Kumamoto, 1946)
Classification of Shigella bacteria (Kumamoto, 1946)
About functional impairment after organ damage (Tokyo, 1947)
A study on the change of cerebrospinal fluid equivalent weight (Niigata, 1949)
In addition, in March 2018, a question was raised that the Kyoto University thesis published in 1945, ``The possibility of plague mediation through dog fleas,'' was likely to be a human experiment conducted by Unit 731. The thesis says that the monkey felt a headache after transferring dog fleas to the monkey. Katsuo Medical School Emeritus Professor Nishiyama argued that based on detailed and realistic research on headaches, it was an experiment conducted on humans, not monkeys.
Hisato Yoshimura, who conducted a frostbite experiment using subjects, gave an excuse in Germany that "doctors may be in danger of life if they did not test the human body." Yoshimura was also promoted from professor to dean at the Kyoto Prefectural Medical University, and in 1978 was awarded a first prize for his pioneering achievements in environmental adaptation studies.
The Nazis and Unit 731 committed heinous war crimes against humans. At the trial in Nuremberg, Germany, 15 of the 23 defendants belonging to the Nazis were convicted of'crimes against humanity' and 7 were sentenced to hang. On the other hand, Japanese 731 units are still showing off their strength in the Japanese politics, health, and medical fields.
At a symphony hosted by the'War and Medicine' Exhibition Executive Committee during the 27th General Assembly Program of the Japanese Medical Association held in April 2007, Professor Wickra of Harvard University in the United States said:
"The denial of the past generation, especially if it was concealed
It can be said that it remains the heavy burden of the present generation.
Unit 731 made such a deal with Japanese scientists,
The secret that Japan had has become the secret that we have."
"Do some research to see what happened in the past
Be sincere, honest, accurate, and face the past
It affirms the values we have always wanted.
Most importantly, only doing so is from an accomplice with the past.
The fact is that it frees the younger generation from having to take responsibility for past infidelity.
Instead of asking the younger generation to keep the tradition of concealment or accomplice
To completely free them from this responsibility."
##References##
War and Medical Ethics Verification Promotion Association and Suzuki Akira <Unit 731 and Doctors> Kang Joonman <A Walk in American History 7-Hot and Cold Wars> Shin Shin-hwan <Social History of Disease> Choi Seok-min <Uninvited Guest, Evolution of Infectious Disease> Bok-Gyu Kwon <Life Ethics and Law> Jihee Kim, and Siyoung Lee. "A review of historical and legal safety regulations for biological weapons of mass destruction, including biological agents." Journal of the Korean Society of Safety (formerly Journal of Industrial Safety) 22.4 (2007): 102-109.
Source: Neighborhood Scientist (http://www.astronomer.rocks)