be recalled to life". if a victim could be successfully resuscitated, himmler ordered that he be pardoned to "concentration camp for life". sea water experiments from about july 1944 to about september 1944, experiments were conducted at the dachau concentration camp to study various methods of making sea water drinkable. these victims were subject to deprivation of all food and only given the filtered sea water. at one point, a group of roughly 90 roma were deprived of food and given nothing but sea water to drink by hans eppinger, leaving them gravely injured. they were so dehydrated that others observed them licking freshly mopped floors in an attempt to get drinkable water. a holocaust survivor named joseph tschofenig wrote a statement on these seawater experiments at dachau. tschofenig explained how while working at the medical experimentation stations he gained insight into some of the experiments that were performed on prisoners, namely those in which they were forced to drink salt water. tschofenig also described how victims of the experiments had trouble eating and would desperately seek out any source of water, including old floor rags. tschofenig was responsible for using the x-ray machine in the infirmary and describes how, even though he had insight into what was going on, he was powerless to stop it. he gives the example of a patient in the infirmary who was sent to the gas chambers by sigmund rascher simply because he witnessed one of the low-pressure experiments. sterilization and fertility experiments the law for the prevention of genetically defective progeny, which was passed on 14 july 1933, legalized the involuntary sterilization of persons with diseases claimed to be hereditary: weak-mindedness, schizophrenia, alcohol abuse, insanity, blindness, deafness, and physical deformities. the law was used to encourage growth of the aryan race through the sterilization of persons who fell under the quota of being genetically defective. 1% of citizens between the age of 17 to 24 had been sterilized within two years of the law passing. within four years, 300,000 patients had been sterilized. from about march 1941 to about january 1945, sterilization experiments were conducted at auschwitz, ravensbrück, and other places by carl clauberg. the purpose of these experiments was to develop a method of sterilization which would be suitable for sterilizing millions of people with a minimum of time and effort. the targets for sterilization included jewish and roma populations. these experiments were conducted by means of x-ray, surgery and various drugs. thousands of victims were sterilized. aside from its experimentation, the nazi government sterilized around 400,000 people as part of its compulsory sterilization program. carl clauberg was the leading research developer in the search for cost effective and efficient means of mass sterilization. he was particularly interested in experimenting on women from age twenty to forty who had already given birth. prior to any experiments, clauberg x-rayed women to make sure that there was no obstruction to their ovaries. next, over the course of three to five sessions, he injected the women's cervixes with the goal of blocking their fallopian tubes. the women who stood against him and his experiments or were deemed as unfit test subjects were sent to be killed in the gas chambers. intravenous injections of solutions speculated to contain iodine and silver nitrate were successful, but had unwanted side effects such as vaginal bleeding, severe abdominal pain, and cervical cancer. therefore, radiation treatment became the favored choice of sterilization. specific amounts of exposure to radiation destroyed a person's ability to produce ova or sperm, sometimes administered through deception. many suffered severe radiation burns. the nazis also implemented x-ray radiation treatment in their search for mass sterilization. they gave the women abdomen x-rays, men received them on their genitalia, for abnormal periods of time in attempt to invoke infertility. after the experiment was complete, they surgically removed their reproductive organs, often without anesthesia, for lab analysis. m.d. william e. seidelman, a professor from the university of toronto, in collaboration with dr. howard israel of columbia university, published a report on an investigation on the medical experimentation performed in austria under the nazi regime. in that report he mentions a doctor hermann stieve, who used the war to experiment on live humans. stieve specifically focused on the reproductive system of women. he would tell women their date of death in advance, and he would evaluate how their psychological distress would affect their menstruation cycles. after they were murdered, he would dissect and examine their reproductive organs. some of the women were raped after they were told the date when they would be killed so that stieve could study the path of sperm through their reproductive system. anatomist hermann stieve is alleged to have carried out experiments which involved allowing ss officers to rape female test subjects in order to study sperm migration. however, there is no evidence that stieve ever studied sperm migration, a subject not mentioned in his papers. stieve is known to have dissected the bodies of executed female prisoners in order to study the effect of stress on the female reproductive cycle. sulfonamide experiments from about july 1942 to about september 1943, experiments to investigate the effectiveness of sulfonamide, a synthetic antimicrobial agent, were conducted at ravensbrück. wounds inflicted on the subjects were infected with bacteria such as streptococcus, clostridium perfringens (a major causative agent in gas gangrene) and clostridium tetani, the causative agent in tetanus. circulation of blood was interrupted by tying off blood vessels at both ends of the wound to create a condition similar to that of a battlefield wound. researchers also aggravated the subjects' infection by forcing wood shavings and ground glass into their wounds. the infection was treated with sulfonamide and other drugs to determine their effectiveness. other experiments child victims of nazi experimentation show incisions where axillary lymph nodes had been surgically removed after they were deliberately infected with tuberculosis at neuengamme concentration camp. they were later murdered. in mid-1942 in baranowicze, occupied poland, head injury experiments were conducted in a small building behind the private home occupied by a known nazi sd security service officer, in which "a young boy of eleven or twelve strapped to a chair so he could not move. above him was a mechanized hammer that every few seconds came down upon his head." the boy was driven insane from the torture. inmates were also subjected to various diseases which were given in the form of injections. at the german concentration camps of sachsenhausen, dachau, natzweiler, buchenwald, and neuengamme, scientists tested immunization compounds and serums for the prevention and treatment of contagious diseases, including malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis. from about february 1942 to about april 1945, experiments were conducted at the dachau concentration camp in order to investigate immunization for treatment of malaria. healthy inmates were infected by mosquitoes or by injections of extracts of the mucous glands of female mosquitoes. after contracting the disease, the subjects were treated with various drugs to test their relative efficacy. over 1,200 people were used in these experiments and more than half died as a result. other test subjects were left with permanent disabilities. in an affidavit, presented at the doctors' trial, oswald pohl called the dachau malaria experiment's the "largest experiment" and reported it as the cause for his protest to heinrich himmler against such experiments because "schilling continually asked for prisoners." from june 1943 until january 1945 at the concentration camps, sachsenhausen and natzweiler, experimentation with 'epidemic jaundice' was conducted. the test subjects were injected with the disease in order to discover new inoculations for the condition. these tests were conducted for the benefit of the german armed forces. most died in the experiments, whilst others survived, experiencing great pain and suffering. somewhere between december 1943 and october 1944, experiments were conducted at buchenwald to investigate the effect of various poisons. the poisons were secretly administered to experimental subjects in their food. the victims died as a result of the poison or were killed immediately in order to permit autopsies. in september 1944, experimental subjects were shot with poisonous bullets, suffered torture, and often died. some male jewish prisoners had poisonous substances scrubbed or injected into their skin, causing boils filled with black fluid to form. these experiments were heavily documented as well as photographed by the nazis. at various times between september 1939 and april 1945, many experiments were conducted at sachsenhausen, natzweiler, and other camps to investigate the most effective treatment of wounds caused by mustard gas. test subjects were deliberately exposed to mustard gas and other vesicants (e.g. lewisite), which inflicted severe chemical burns. the victims' wounds were then tested to find the most effective treatment for the mustard gas burns. from around november 1943 to around january 1944, experiments were conducted at buchenwald to test the effect of various pharmaceutical preparations on phosphorus burns. these burns were inflicted on prisoners using phosphorus material extracted from incendiary bombs. some female prisoners of block 10 were also subject to electroshock therapy. these women were often sick and underwent this experimentation before being sent to the gas chambers and killed. aftermath jadwiga dzido shows scars on her leg from medical experiments to the doctors' trial. other documented transcriptions from heinrich himmler include phrases such as "these researches… can be performed by us with particular efficiency because i personally assumed the responsibility for supplying asocial individuals and criminals who deserve only to die from concentration camps for these experiments." many of the subjects died as a result of the experiments conducted by the nazis, while many others were murdered after the tests were completed to study the effects post mortem. those who survived were often left mutilated, with permanent disability, weakened bodies, and mental distress. on 19 august 1947, the doctors captured by allied forces were put on trial in usa vs. karl brandt et al., commonly known as the doctors' trial. at the trial, several of the doctors argued in their defense that there was no international law regarding medical experimentation. some doctors also claimed that they had been doing the world a favor. an ss doctor was quoted saying that "jews were the festering appendix in the body of europe." he then went on to argue he was doing the world a favor by eliminating them. the issue of informed consent had previously been controversial in german medicine in 1900, when albert neisser infected patients (mainly prostitutes) with syphilis without their consent. despite neisser's support from most of the academic community, public opinion, led by psychiatrist albert moll, was against neisser. while neisser went on to be fined by the royal disciplinary court, moll developed "a legally based, positivistic contract theory of the patient-doctor relationship" that was not adopted into german law. eventually, the minister for religious, educational, and medical affairs issued a directive stating that medical interventions other than for diagnosis, healing, and immunization were excluded under all circumstances if "the human subject was a minor or not competent for other reasons", or if the subject had not given his or her "unambiguous consent" after a "proper explanation of the possible negative consequences" of the intervention, though this was not legally binding. in response, drs. leo alexander and andrew conway ivy, the american medical association representatives at the doctors' trial, drafted a ten-point memorandum entitled permissible medical experiment that went on to be known as the nuremberg code. the code calls for such standards as voluntary consent of patients, avoidance of unnecessary pain and suffering, and that there must be a belief that the experimentation will not end in death or disability. the code was not cited in any of the findings against the defendants and never made it into either german or american medical law. this code comes from the nuremberg trials where the most heinous of nazi leaders were put on trial for their war crimes. to this day, the nuremberg code remains a major stepping stone for medical experimentation. modern ethical issues andrew conway ivy stated the nazi experiments were of no medical value. data obtained from the experiments, however, has been used and considered for use in multiple fields, often causing controversy. some object to the data's use purely on ethical grounds, disagreeing with the methods used to obtain it, while