Books, Bones and Bodies: The Legacies of Nazi Anatomy for Bioethics Today

October 02, 2020

September 30, 2020

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00:00Thank you all so much for joining us.
00:03Welcome to the evening Ethics Seminar
00:05series from the program for Biomedical
00:07Ethics at Yale School of Medicine
00:08and as many of you are aware of.
00:11As many of you come to these things often.
00:13We do this once or twice a month and most
00:16most often we bring in a visiting scholar
00:18from another institution and this year,
00:21of course we're bringing them in virtually.
00:23But we're very fortunate that we've had some
00:26terrific speakers lined up for this year, and
00:28in particular tonight and in just a minute.
00:30I want to introduce our
00:33speaker for the night.
00:35Professor Hildebrand.
00:36To let you know.
00:38I want to welcome you on behalf
00:40of myself as well as the associate
00:42director of the program,
00:43Jack Hughes and Serra Hall and the
00:45manager of the program, Karen cold.
00:47Do I think you see on the screen here?
00:50We were very pleased you're here.
00:52I invite you to check out our
00:55website biomedicalethics@yale.edu
00:55and you can see a schedule for
00:57the program for the whole year,
00:59all the different programs and will.
01:01If you want to get on our mailing list,
01:04you can certainly reach out to me or
01:06to Karen Cole at karen.cobe@yale.edu
01:08and you'll find this on that website
01:11as well and will be sure to get
01:13you in the mailing list as well
01:15to remind you of these programs.
01:18For tonight I want to go ahead and
01:20introduce you to our guest speaker tonight.
01:23This is professor should be the
01:24Hildebrandt who is an associate
01:26professor of Pediatrics at Boston
01:28Children's Hospital and a lecture
01:29on global health and social medicine
01:31at Harvard Medical School.
01:33She studied medicine at the
01:34University of Marburg in Germany.
01:36She worked for many years at University
01:38admission with Michigan Medical
01:40School as an anatomical educator,
01:41and then moved to Harvard.
01:43She teaches anatomy and history
01:45of Anatomy at Harvard Medical
01:46School and Harvard College.
01:48Her research interests are the history
01:50and ethics of anatomy and specifically
01:52the history of anatomy and the study of
01:55Anatomy during national Socialist Germany,
01:57which is the subject of
01:59our conversation tonight.
02:00Her book,
02:01the anatomy of murder,
02:02ethical transgressions,
02:03and anatomical science during the
02:05Third Reich was published in 2016.
02:07I missed the first systematic study
02:10of Anatomy during national socialism.
02:12The biography of Jewish position refugee
02:14Kathy Beutler was published in 2019 and
02:16there are future books in the works.
02:18This is an area of interest of
02:20mine and I know jacks as well.
02:23We've taught for many years in
02:25the fellowship set outfits for the
02:27study of professional ethics on
02:28the director of that program,
02:30rather than Thorsten Wagner is
02:32hopefully on this call as well,
02:34but I want to let the medical students
02:36who might be on the call know that the
02:39fellowships are also known as fast BF.
02:41ASP presented a wonderful opportunity
02:43for medical students to get a
02:45scholarship to study ethics further.
02:46They are rather special setting
02:48and I won't go into
02:49detail about that except to encourage you to
02:51Google fast BF ASP or to reach out to me.
02:53I'll be glad to give you more information.
02:56But tonight following the the
02:58interest associated with fasting,
02:59that theme is doctor Hildebrandt and I'm
03:02so pleased because we had been in touch
03:05for the past few years because we have
03:07this shared interest and I've tried to
03:10find a way to bring her here and now.
03:13Tonight through the wonders of zoom
03:15technology and covid isolation we have
03:17professors have been a hildebrandt.
03:19So please join me in welcoming her and
03:21we look forward to a terrific program.
03:24This evening professor
03:25Holder and thank you so much mark
03:27for this very kind introduction.
03:29Always happy to be back in New Haven,
03:32even if only in spirit at this point,
03:36and I'm particularly grateful for
03:38the opportunity to speak here today
03:40about books, bones and bodies.
03:42The legacies of Nazi Anatomy
03:44for bioethics today,
03:45and I will start with Libertas,
03:48has higher and huddle Schutze Boys and
03:51whom you see here in the year 1935 year
03:54before they were married about us was a
03:58publicist in the German movie industry.
04:00Berlin and huddle was an officer in the rice
04:04aviation ministry in the Nazi government.
04:06Both of them were opposed against
04:09Hitler in his policies and very soon
04:11found themselves as part of a group
04:14of political dissidents that became
04:16known as the so called Red Orchestra.
04:19The activities of this group were
04:22discovered in the summer of 1942.
04:24They were imprisoned and put on
04:26trial libertas on top ahead.
04:28Their trial on the 19th of December 1942.
04:31And they were sentence to death
04:34for high treason,
04:35like all prisoners on death row,
04:37libertas was allowed to write a
04:39letter of farewell on the day of her
04:42execution on the 22nd of December, 1942.
04:44In this last letter to her mother,
04:47she voiced very clear ideas of what should
04:50happen to her body after her death,
04:52she wrote as a last wish.
04:54I have asked that my material
04:56substance be left to you, if possible,
04:59bearing me in a beautiful place
05:01amid sunny nature.
05:02However, this is not what happened.
05:05Instead,
05:05we learned what happened from the
05:07reports of another young woman shall,
05:09at the Palmer who had just graduated from
05:12medical school and was a aspiring anatomist,
05:15serving as an assistant to professor.
05:17How much diva chair of Anatomy
05:19in Berlin the Anatomy Department
05:21was just down the street from
05:23the execution center in Berlin.
05:25Plots and see.
05:26Charlotte Apama remembered and
05:2822nd of December 1942.
05:30Eleven men were hanged in five women.
05:33Decapitated 15 minutes later,
05:34they were laid out under the section
05:37tables in the Anatomical Institute.
05:39She that is libertus lay on the 1st
05:42table and on the third table the big,
05:45lifeless body of her husband.
05:48I felt paralyzed and could hardly assist.
05:51Professor Stephen,
05:51who as always carried out his
05:54scientific exploration with great
05:55care and uncommon diligence.
05:57After the impressions of that night,
05:59I resigned from my position,
06:01and whereas Charlotta Palmer
06:03resigned from her position,
06:04how much team remained in
06:06his until his death in 1952?
06:09This was possible without
06:10interruption after the war,
06:12because he had never joined,
06:14joined the honesty AP, the Nazi Party.
06:17However,
06:17we know from his publications
06:19that he dissected several 100
06:21bodies of executed victims of.
06:23The Nazi regime for his research.
06:25Until the 1920s,
06:26he had performed animal research
06:28on the influence of the nervous
06:30system and stress on the male
06:32and female writer active system,
06:34and then in the 1920s,
06:36he realized that he could
06:38interpret the situation of death
06:40row inmates as reflection
06:41of his animal experiments,
06:43in that he saw the imprisonment
06:45in fear of execution as stressors
06:47on the bodies of these prisoners,
06:49and so he performed studies on tissues
06:52from executed men. At the time,
06:54women were not executed in Germany.
06:57This only started again
06:58under the Nazis in 1935,
07:00and then Stephen performed
07:02research on these executed women.
07:04He looked at the effect of severe
07:07psychological trauma on menstruation
07:08patterns and the morphology
07:10of the reproductive organs,
07:12and as far as we know,
07:14he never had access to these
07:17prisoners before their death.
07:18He claimed that he had received
07:21the clinical information
07:22from the prison personnel.
07:24Now to get a better understanding
07:26of what happened to victims,
07:28likely about us and the activities
07:30of anatomists during the time
07:32of the so called 3rd right,
07:34we have to look at the
07:37various facets of Anatomy.
07:38During that time we have to look at
07:41the interactions between anatomists.
07:43In politics,
07:43we have to look at the body
07:46procurement and the changes in it.
07:48That included increasing numbers
07:50of bodies of Nazi victims.
07:52And here we see that these were use
07:54in anatomical education and research.
07:57And we see very clear signs of ethical
08:00transgression during that time.
08:01And there are many continuity's
08:03and legacies from this history
08:06that we have to look at.
08:08Now the image that you see here
08:10is a charcoal drawing by the
08:13medical illustrator Leopold
08:14Metzen Bauer documented here.
08:16The arrival of coffins with bodies of
08:19executed persons at Vienna Anatomy in 1943.
08:23Starting with the interaction
08:24between anatomists and politics,
08:26we have to realize that as soon as the
08:30Nazis came into power in January of 1933,
08:34they saw the reorganization and
08:36centralization of all German universities.
08:38In that the leadership was taken away
08:41from the individual German state and
08:43put into the hands of the centralized
08:46Ministry of Education in Berlin,
08:48which was responsible also for
08:50the Anatomical Institutes.
08:51Here it was responsible for research
08:54funding for the recruitment of
08:56faculty for the professional society
08:58known as the anatomic isation of
09:00that was actually in International
09:02Society and for the body procurement,
09:05whereby it shared the responsibility
09:07for the body procurement.
09:09With the Ministry of Justice when
09:11it came to prisoners and executed
09:13persons also the new government sought
09:16the alignment of all science with a
09:19Nazi doctrine and the utilization
09:21of all science for war purposes
09:23and within three months there were
09:25laws on the books that led to the
09:28dismissal of also called non Aryan
09:31and politically opposed faculty.
09:33About 20% of all those who worked
09:36in German academia in 1933.
09:38When we look at the political
09:40spectrum of anatomists at the time,
09:43we have to remember that they were
09:45trained as physicians and we know
09:48from the work of Michael cada and
09:50others that physicians at a group
09:52had a much larger membership rate in
09:55the various Nazi political formations
09:57than any of the other professional groups.
10:00Currently we have data for 176
10:02after 233 anatomists who
10:04work in Germany and the occupied territories,
10:07and of those 100 and 7654 saw their
10:11career disrupted for racial or
10:13political reasons were by this only.
10:16In very few cases meant
10:18they had to change careers.
10:21In most cases it meant forced emigration
10:24or the danger of imprisonment and death.
10:27Of the 122 anatomist who remained in
10:30Germany in the occupied territories.
10:3399 joined the NSDA P the Nazi Party.
10:3642 joined the essay.
10:38Those were the Brown shirts and 13
10:42joined the assess the death head squads.
10:45Only 10 anatomists had no affiliation
10:48with the Nazi political system.
10:51Anatomists had an important
10:52role in the state,
10:54supporting signs of so-called racial hygiene,
10:57which was the German version of the
10:59internationally leading science of eugenics,
11:02which of course was practiced at the
11:05time internationally and also in the US.
11:07The leading anatomist among these
11:09racial hygienists was Oregon Fisher,
11:12who was Chairman at the anatomy
11:14Department in Freiburg until 1927,
11:16when he became the founding director of the
11:19Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for anthropology.
11:22Moment,
11:22heredity and eugenics and Berlin.
11:24Because of the name is huge by the way,
11:27were the predecessors of today's
11:29Max Planck Institutes in Germany.
11:31You see him here in his role as regular,
11:35that is president of the University of
11:38Berlin that he held from 1933 to 1934.
11:41As physical anthropologists anatomists
11:43contributed to the scientific
11:45legitimation of the Nazi policies
11:47through the ideas of racial hygiene,
11:49they served as leaders in research
11:52on racial hygiene and racial theory,
11:55foremost among them Oregon Fisher.
11:57Again,
11:57they served as teachers of racial hygiene,
12:00and they served as judges on the
12:03so called genetic health high
12:05courts that decided about for
12:08sterilization and forced abortions.
12:10Ideas for racial hygiene supported the
12:12victimization of certain parts of the
12:15population whose bodies were then used
12:17within the anatomical body procurement.
12:19One of the most active Nazis among the
12:22anatomist was the Austrian Edward Perkoff.
12:25He became chair of Anatomy at Vienna
12:28University in 1933 in the same year
12:31he joined the Nazi Party and the
12:34Brown shirts that were actually
12:36illegal at the time in Austria,
12:39'cause Austria had its own system, and.
12:41Of Austro Fascism.
12:43Now when Austria was annexed by Germany
12:46in the so called Angeles in 1938,
12:48per Cup was made Dean of the
12:51Vienna Medical School,
12:52and in this role oversaw the removal
12:55of 53% of the medical faculty for
12:58so-called racial or political reasons.
13:00And then in 1943 he was also made
13:03president of Vienna University
13:04and of course lost that position
13:07after the war and was imprisoned.
13:09Nevertheless, he became very well known.
13:12As the author of an Anatomical Atlas,
13:15the Topa Graphical Anatomy of
13:17men that was published in four
13:19volumes between 1937 and 1960,
13:22the first American edition came out in 1963.
13:25One of many translations of this work,
13:28it became globally popular among
13:30anatomists and surgeons because
13:32of the great detail and then mood
13:35printing technique that allowed
13:37for such brilliant images as the
13:39sitis of the head
13:41and neck region. However,
13:42already after the publication of the
13:45first American edition there rumors
13:47came up that there was untoward
13:49historical background to the Atlas and
13:52the first investigations into that
13:55history were made by Gerald Weissmann
13:57and David Williams in the 1980s.
14:00However, it lasted until the 1990s
14:03that public discussion started
14:05about the very clear signs of Nazi
14:08sympathies that the illustrators
14:09had left in those images that
14:12were created during the war year.
14:14At the Erekle PUC here with a
14:17signature that included the swastika,
14:20Colin press ahead double S in
14:23his name and during the war years
14:26use DSS lightning Bolt rooms
14:28for his signature fronts.
14:31Parker drew normally his number for
14:34like this and also in the year 44
14:37use the essay lightning Bolt rooms.
14:40It was then in 1994 that the
14:43New York or oral maxillo facial
14:46surgeon how Israel contacted.
14:48Bill Seidelman,
14:49physician and medical historian in Canada,
14:52and together they motivated the Yad
14:54Vashem Matias Authority in Jerusalem
14:56to send an official inquiry on the
14:59origins of the Atlas to Vienna University.
15:02the University at first denied that
15:04there was any untoward background,
15:07but then actually launched a very
15:10detailed historical investigation
15:11in the so called Senatorial project
15:13that was published in the late 1990s.
15:16It was found that indeed.
15:18Hopelessly avid,
15:19not see that I just described,
15:22and it was also found in addition,
15:25that the anatomy of Vienna had received
15:281377 bodies of executed persons for
15:30anatomical purposes during that time.
15:33And these were persons who were not
15:35killed in the concentration camps are
15:38rather they were killed after civilian
15:41and military trials in official
15:43executions in the Vienna court system.
15:46We do know for a fact that some of these.
15:51Victim's bodies were used for
15:53some of the images in the Atlas,
15:56but it is unclear which images
15:58belong to which victim in.
16:00This brings us to the changes
16:03in body procurement during the
16:05so-called 3rd right now,
16:07the traditional body procurement at
16:09that time in Germany in world wide we
16:12relied on so-called unclaimed bodies.
16:14Unclaimed bodies are bodies of persons
16:16who die in public institutions and whose
16:19families don't claim them for burial.
16:22And the anatomical budget procurement
16:25was regulated by specific laws among
16:28these traditional legal sources
16:29were usually the bodies of the Seas.
16:33Psychiatric patients, suicides,
16:34bodies of deceased prisoners,
16:36and among the prisoners also
16:39executed persons.
16:40Now, under the Nazis from 1933 on,
16:43we see an exponentially rising number
16:46of victims of the Nazi regime.
16:49Among these traditional sources among
16:51the deceased psychiatric patients,
16:53we see a persons who were murdered
16:56within the so called euthanasia program.
16:59Among the suicides were increasing
17:02numbers of Jewish citizens among
17:04the deceased prisoners were more
17:06political prisoners due to the
17:08escalating Nazi legislation.
17:10More violence lead to more.
17:12There's especially in the Gestapo Prisons,
17:15then we have so called natural
17:17deaths in the ever expanding camp.
17:20A system not only in the
17:23centralized concentration camps that
17:24also in the decentralized cares for
17:27forced laborers and prisoners of war.
17:30And finally we see an
17:32exponential rise of executions,
17:33especially during the lawyers because
17:36of the new Nazi legislation in the so
17:40called by Mary public from 1919 to 1933.
17:43We see altogether 200 executions ICS.
17:45Exclusively of men and now under the Nazis,
17:49we see exponential rise to more
17:51than 30,000 executions following
17:53civilian and military trials,
17:55and this is a conservative estimate
17:58and among the executed as we heard
18:01before were from 1935 and also women,
18:04even in individual cases pregnant women.
18:08Now there were altogether 31
18:10Department of Anatomy in Germany
18:12and the occupied territories,
18:14and we have now a sufficient number of
18:17studies of these department's to come
18:20up with the first estimate for the
18:23total body supply during those years.
18:26And that lies conservatively
18:27at 30 to 35,000 bodies.
18:29I'm sorry,
18:30but it is unclear how many of these are.
18:34Actually,
18:35I'm sorry.
18:36It is unclear how many of these were
18:39actually bodies of of Nazi victims.
18:42We do have an evidence based estimate,
18:45for example from the University of Tubingen,
18:48where it was thought that 2/3 of
18:50the total body supply where those
18:53of Nazi victims we do know for a
18:56fact that all anatomical departments
18:59received the bodies of executed
19:01persons and the most common mode
19:03of execution was decapitation,
19:05as this rather drastic image.
19:07Buy medicines hour documents.
19:09Here we have a documented number of
19:123963 bodies of executed persons that
19:14were delivered to 21 Department of Anatomy.
19:17The numbers for the rest are
19:19still in the works.
19:21We know most of them by name
19:23and we have started with the
19:26reconstruction of the biographies.
19:28The first was done that in a
19:30systematic fashion is my colleague.
19:33Once your home loan.
19:35No,
19:35my I myself looked at the
19:38victims on Stevens List.
19:39In 1946,
19:40Steven was ordered by the Soviet
19:43military authority to produce a
19:45list of all bodies delivered to the
19:48Berlin Anatomy from 1933 to 1945.
19:50However,
19:51he was unable to produce the total
19:53of a full list because the body
19:56registered that had the names was
19:59mysteriously lost after the war.
20:01Nevertheless,
20:01he came up with a fragmentary list
20:04because he kept very detailed research notes.
20:07On his research subjects that included
20:09the names and this list exists in
20:12various copies in Berlin Archives,
20:14so I went to one of these archives,
20:17got a copy of the list and went
20:19with this to the memorial site
20:22for the German resistance where
20:24historian colleagues are collecting
20:25documentation on everybody who was
20:28executed in the Berlin execution
20:30sides and the colleagues were kind
20:33enough to share this material with
20:35me so that now we know that on
20:38the list for altogether 182 names.
20:40174 of them were from women and
20:42aid for men and Liberta.
20:44Schutze poison was number 37 on that list.
20:48We know the general age distribution
20:50of these persons on Stevens list and
20:53most of them were of reproductive age.
20:55That's the age he was most
20:58interested in it for its research,
21:00but he also published papers
21:02on post menopausal women.
21:04We know their nationalities,
21:052/3 of them were German,
21:07the rest were Polish, French,
21:09Czech, Belgian, Austrian.
21:10There was one US citizen,
21:12one Soviet citizen among them.
21:14And we know that religious affiliations
21:17they were Jehovah's Witnesses,
21:18Protestants, Catholics, Jews and atheists,
21:21and we know why they had been put on trial.
21:25They had been accused in nearly
21:27half of the cases of high treason.
21:30Then the rest was theft.
21:32Subversion so many different crimes,
21:35so-called crimes could lead
21:36to capital punishment.
21:38Subversion could mean that somebody
21:40had made fun of Hitler and also the
21:43accusations of arson and murder
21:45usually had political backgrounds.
21:47These women came from all walks of life.
21:51They were homemakers,
21:52social workers, administrators,
21:54political activists,
21:54lecture as forced laborers,
21:56artists Taylor and answers.
21:58They all shared the same fate.
22:01Their bodies were used in anatomical
22:04education and in anatomical research
22:07and here we see very clear stages
22:10of an ethical transgression that
22:12happened over the next years.
22:15We actually don't know how what
22:17influence the confrontation with
22:19the bodies of Nazi victims had on
22:21a whole generation of physician
22:23that was trained in their anatomy.
22:25Education on these victims bodies.
22:27Very few of them ever spoke about that
22:30wartime experiences after the war,
22:32and one of the very few was Homer,
22:35funded for the popular system
22:37Germany after the war was a medical
22:40student with Steven in Berlin.
22:41During the Warriors you see him here
22:44in his Army uniform because medical
22:46students also had to serve in the army.
22:50He remembered in his autobiography,
22:52published in 1993.
22:53We students knew on whose human remains
22:56are gain of anatomical knowledge rested,
22:59and especially in the large urban sentences,
23:02was very well known because the
23:05Nazis plastered these bright red
23:07poses everywhere around town to
23:09see and announce who was executed,
23:12why and when.
23:12Did Ford was also one of the very
23:15few in Germany who laid up publicly
23:18reflected on his own potential guilt,
23:21he wrote.
23:22Did this knowledge alone also
23:23mean that we were complicit?
23:25The answer to this question isn't easy,
23:28but I tend to think that it is yes.
23:31We have no similar admission
23:33of guilt from any of the other
23:35anatomists who worked with bodies
23:38of the executed another victims.
23:40One of these anatomists was Hammond Force.
23:43He worked in Leipzig at the time.
23:46In a 9037 joined the Nazi party to
23:49leverage his somewhat stalled career.
23:51And indeed,
23:52in 9041 he was made chairman of Anatomy
23:55in the newly founded German University
23:58in opposing the occupied Poland.
24:00One of his jobs then was.
24:03To create an order section program
24:05and he tells us exactly how it
24:07did that in his diary that was
24:10published by God Sally in 1987.
24:12Exactly.
24:1379 years ago he rode on September 30th,
24:171941.
24:17Today I had a very interesting
24:20discussion with the chief Prosecutor,
24:22Doctor Heiser, about obtaining
24:24corpses for the Anatomical Institute.
24:26So many people are executed here that
24:28there are enough for all three institutes.
24:31That was not only posing but also the nearby
24:36universities of Cliffside and Breslau.
24:38Then a month later he writes tomorrow.
24:41The Anatomical Institute
24:42will get its first bodies.
24:4411 poles are being executed.
24:45I will take five of them.
24:48The others will be cremated.
24:50That is, there were more than
24:52enough for the anatomist to use
24:54for his educational purposes.
24:55And then again,
24:57a few months later,
24:58he writes that the section of the
25:00organs of the executed persons
25:02were the loveliest I have ever
25:05seen in a dissecting room.
25:07Why were these dissections lovely in
25:09the eyes of the anatomical beholder?
25:11Because they were those of young,
25:14freshly executed men and women who
25:17were Polish resistance fighters.
25:18The bodies of these victims and
25:21bodies from prisoners of a nearby
25:24concentration camp where not only use
25:27in education but also for profit,
25:29sale in the production and sale of
25:32skeleton skulls and plaster customers.
25:35There was documented by goods alley and
25:38the Vienna Anthropologist Market Banner.
25:40When I visited at the museum.
25:43Of Natural History and Vienna in 2017
25:46and market banner showed me here a
25:50page from the acquisition register
25:52from the day of 22nd June 1942.
25:55It is written here in translation skulls
25:58and plaster casts of Jews and poles,
26:01executed in 1940.
26:02One 42 acquired from the Anatomical
26:05Institute of the Rice University of
26:08posing professor force on 22nd of June
26:111942 from chief technician from hillside.
26:14And under the headline Jews,
26:16we read a cranium,
26:17a male,
26:18one of a person born on 15th of August,
26:2219108 and purchased for the price of 25.
26:26Price mark.
26:26So the bodies of the victims were
26:29used for educational purposes.
26:31They were sold for profit and
26:33there were used for research and
26:35one of the busiest users of bodies
26:38of the executed was Max Clara,
26:40chairman of Anatomy in Leipzig and unique,
26:43and they may be known to you
26:45from the eponymous cloud.
26:47Our cell,
26:48which is a bronchiolar cell that
26:50he described from the tissues
26:52of an executed man in 1938.
26:54Max cloud and his colleagues often
26:56used large series of bodies of the
26:59executed up to 20 and 30 of them.
27:02Were mentioned in the message sections
27:04of papers that were published in
27:07journals that were read around
27:09the world and in 1942 he went a
27:11step further and this was first
27:13pointed out by my colleagues Andreas
27:16Winkelman and toss Newark in 2010 in
27:18their Seminole paper on Max Klava.
27:20In that year,
27:211942 Max Clara published a paper on
27:24the vitamin C distribution in human tissues,
27:27and he wrote here in the method
27:29section the material evaluated in
27:31the current study stems from 15
27:33apparently healthy adult individuals
27:35of different ages who.
27:37Without exception,
27:37all died of a sudden death after
27:39varying periods of imprisonment.
27:41The 33 C quarter year old
27:43male individual received one
27:45pill of sybian.
27:46That's a vitamin C product by Merck.
27:48Four times daily for the last
27:50five days before his death.
27:52What had happened here?
27:54Cloud, I had realized that he
27:56did not have to wait to use
27:58these with the bodies of the
28:00prisoners until they were dead,
28:02but that that he could make
28:04their plant death in execution
28:06as part of his research design.
28:08Could manipulate the tissues before
28:10that this and then harvest the
28:13tissues he was interested in with
28:14this cloud are very clearly crossed.
28:17The boundary of the traditional
28:19paradigm of knowledge gain anatomy's
28:21who work with a debt to a new paradigm.
28:24That is work with what I call the
28:26future dead or human experimentation.
28:28In this paradigm shift was first
28:30pointed out by my colleague.
28:32Answer him long.
28:33Now you may say while giving
28:35somebody vitamin C before,
28:37this is not really harmful.
28:39So what but in 1942 we do see in
28:42escalation in human experimentation
28:44by anatomists and the next stage.
28:46In this escalation we see in the
28:49activities of Johann Paul Creamer,
28:51who was a professor of Anatomy in Munster.
28:54He also wasn't as as officer and
28:57from time to time was called to
29:00duty in various concentration camps,
29:02where usually took care of his fellow prison,
29:05his fellow officers.
29:06But in our suites he had a different job.
29:10And he was there for a couple of
29:13months in 1942 up to then yet performed
29:16animal research on the effects of hunger.
29:20When he arrived in our sheets,
29:22he learned that he had to be present
29:25at the selections and help with the
29:28selections at the train ramp in Auschwitz,
29:32Birkenau and also perform selections of
29:34sick prisoners on the hospital wards.
29:37Have these prisoners then executed there?
29:39He came up with the idea that
29:41he now could transfer his animal
29:44research into the human system.
29:47He asked for permission to select
29:49the prisoners that he found,
29:51quote unquote, most interesting.
29:53Then he accompanied these prisoners
29:55to the execution chamber,
29:57took their medical history,
29:58then awaited their murder by
30:00intracardiac phenol injection.
30:02We don't know whether he performed
30:04at himself and then remove that
30:07issues he was most interested in.
30:10Now we know all these details because
30:12he kept a diary throughout his life.
30:15You see here a page from the time when
30:18he was in Auschwitz and this diary
30:20was found by the British military
30:23after the war in Klimas apartment in Munster.
30:27The diary became the very first
30:29document that proved that physicians
30:30had performed human experiments
30:32in the concentration camps.
30:34Klima was then put on trial for
30:37murder in Poland and in Germany now.
30:40A cleaner had entered the concentration
30:42camp without a previous design
30:44to perform any experiments there,
30:46but he had basically stumbled over the
30:49opportunity to work with the future dead.
30:52What we do know also of an
30:54anatomist to became the mastermind
30:56of work with the future debt,
30:59and that was August Hilt after
31:01several chair positions in
31:03Germany, he was made cheer of the
31:06newly re founded German Anatomy
31:08Department in the newly founded
31:10German University is passbook in
31:12the Alsace that had been occupied.
31:15And he was also an SS officer who was
31:18involved in the arm and ABBA and is S
31:22organization that studied race with them.
31:24He performed human experiments
31:26on camp inmates with poison gas.
31:28Now this is a very small map of
31:32Germany during the war years.
31:34Over here we see the occupied Alsace.
31:36Strasbourg was criteria and the
31:39concentration camp aware Augustine
31:41performed this experiment was shut off
31:44nuts while are close by to Strasbourg.
31:46Now Hilton then went on to design
31:49a large anthropological anatomical
31:51experiment with the so-called
31:53Jewish skeleton collection.
31:54For that purpose,
31:56he had his colleagues from the SS,
31:59Anne and Abate anthropologists.
32:00Plano bigger and hence fleischaker
32:03select prisoners in Auschwitz
32:04over here in occupied Poland.
32:07This was in the summer of 1943
32:09and these selected prisoners were
32:11then transported by train from
32:14Auschwitz too short of nuts Villa.
32:17Their August heard gave the cyanide
32:19salts for the murder of these victims to
32:22the commander of the concentration camp.
32:2486 of them were murdered in.
32:26Their bodies were delivered
32:28immediately to the Stars Book Anatomy
32:30Department for further processing.
32:31Now this project was never finalized
32:34and the bodies were found by the
32:36Allied forces when they liberated each
32:39task book in the in November of 1944.
32:41Here it was.
32:42Then the only anatomist who was named
32:45during the Nuremberg doctors trial.
32:47He was again indicted in absentia for
32:49murder in Matsonia South in 1950.
32:52Three and only at that time did it
32:54become known that he had performed
32:56suicide in the summer of 1945.
32:59Now I believe that we see very clear
33:01stages of ethical transgression in the
33:03activities of all of these anatomists,
33:06and there are many continuity's and
33:08legacies from this history that I would
33:11like to address under the headline books,
33:13forms, and bodies.
33:14Shallow, the Palmer remained the only
33:17voluntarily retired anatomist at the time.
33:20Few German and Austrian anatomists
33:22last academic positions.
33:23After the war,
33:24they had to pause for awhile,
33:27for so-called denazification.
33:28But then there were back in the
33:32same or a similar academic position.
33:34Their research on bodies of Nazi
33:36victims was published in journals
33:38that were right around the world and
33:41is integrated now into the General
33:43Canon of anatomical knowledge.
33:44Their books are still being used,
33:47foremost among them.
33:48The perk of out listen.
33:49This is here is a paper on a survey
33:52of the use of the perk of Atlas
33:55by nerve surgeon publishing, 2018.
33:57This was an international group
33:59of Nerve Surgeons.
34:00Many of them were aware of the apples
34:03or had you sit at some point into
34:0613% were still currently using it.
34:09Miller survey is just in the
34:11process of being published.
34:13A survey on oral facial maxillary surgeons
34:15who have about the same usage numbers.
34:18Now the Pearl of Atlas was
34:21celebrated in Austria after
34:23the war as a new achievement on a
34:25global scale for Austrian science.
34:28When the third volume of the
34:30Atlas was published in 1952.
34:32We read here in the press.
34:35With this, the publisher or
34:37banish Watson back succeeded
34:39in creating a true master pier.
34:41Peace here came about not only
34:44a scientifically flawless,
34:45indeed outstanding work,
34:46but also did 10 years of Caesars effort,
34:49overly fraught with difficulties,
34:51sacrifices and stress reached their goal,
34:54note difficulties, sacrifices,
34:55stress of anatomists,
34:56not of the victims who had to give
35:00their bodies for the images per Gov.
35:03Had alotta been allowed to come back
35:05to a couple of rooms at University of
35:09Vienna to finish work on his Atlas.
35:12He has you see him here with this
35:15post war work team and the young
35:18man signified here by the Red Star.
35:21Was there not plot so joint paragraph
35:23after the war as his assistant and
35:26became later the editor of the next
35:29editions of the protocol fatless
35:31manner platter then became the chief
35:34of Anatomy in Austria and in's Clock.
35:37And he was in the 1990s then
35:40involved in the historical background
35:42analysis of the Prograf Atlas,
35:45Vienna University,
35:46and the lawyers that had been
35:48employed by other shame.
35:50Wrote a letter to the president
35:53of Innsbruck University,
35:54having him ask the director of the
35:57Anatomy Department professor Platze,
35:59about the background of the Atlas,
36:02and in this letter professor
36:04plots explained what he did with
36:07the 3rd edition of the program.
36:09Fatness first of all.
36:11He testifies that Innsbrook Anatomy
36:13does not hold specimens from
36:15persons executed from 1938 and 9045,
36:17or from prisoners of concentration camps.
36:20Then he writes the 3rd edition
36:22of the pro Gov.
36:24Atlas does not include any signatures
36:26that point to the past and with
36:29reference to the swastika signature,
36:31he said,
36:32insofar as images by this painter were used,
36:35I insisted on having the
36:37secrets as destroyed.
36:38Now I had seen various copies
36:40of the Pro Club Atlas.
36:43With and without the swastika
36:45and last year I finally wanted to
36:48to gain clarity about how these
36:51signatures were destroyed.
36:53We believe that some of them were
36:55actually destroyed in the printing
36:57plates of the American edition,
36:59but there were also originals
37:00that I wanted to look at,
37:02and some of them were at that time still
37:05being held by the Copyright Holder of
37:07the Coke of Atlas Elsevier and unique.
37:10So I visited them last year in March.
37:13They don't have all of the
37:15program for rituals.
37:16It's actually unclear where some of
37:18these programs originals ended up.
37:20We started looking for them,
37:22but haven't found them all.
37:23But I believe what I found there in
37:26the originals very clearly documents
37:28the way that some of my colleagues
37:31actually handled after the war,
37:33the Nazi history of our discipline.
37:35Here we see one of the originals
37:38with off Lippy with a swastika,
37:40and again these are actually
37:42in the original watercolors.
37:44On very coarse paper,
37:45and when you look at this
37:47particular original here,
37:49you see that somebody went in with
37:52very fine needle and picked out.
37:54The fibers of the paper that carried
37:57the pig pigment in the downward
38:00stroke of the of the swastika so that
38:03it was retouched when you actually
38:06took photographs of the image for
38:09publication in the 3rd edition.
38:11So I think this is a very clear
38:14visual example of what happened
38:16with Nazi history after the war.
38:19In some instances, then in 1998,
38:22plus there was visited by CNN.
38:24For an interview you see here the
38:27CNN interview with plots and plots
38:30his office in the in spoke anatomy.
38:33You also see here 2 jars with head
38:36specimens that plotter had dissected
38:38for the perk of Atlas after the war and.
38:42You is asking about the interviewer,
38:45could these be specimens from
38:47executed Nazi victims and platter
38:49says here that's possible.
38:51I don't know.
38:52Note this was in 1998,
38:55three years after you had
38:57written to his president,
38:59University president,
39:00that there were no specimens of
39:02Nazi victims in the Institute.
39:05It's also noteworthy that since then
39:07the Inspo colleagues actually have
39:10done a very thorough investigation
39:12of the anatomical collection.
39:14These two specimens could
39:15not be found any longer.
39:18Instead,
39:18they found large series of microscopic
39:21slides of tissues from person from
39:25victims that had been executed.
39:27No bodies of Nazi victims were used in
39:30German and Austrian Anatomy's for many years.
39:33After the war.
39:34We have documentation on this subject
39:36and atomical specimens from the Nazi
39:39era are still being held in private
39:42collections of anatomist and former students.
39:44In fact,
39:45some of Steve's histological
39:47specimens were only given a
39:50dignified burial last year in May.
39:53While specimens of Nazi origin were
39:55officially removed from University and Max
39:57Planck instituting collections in the 1990s,
40:00more are still being found very clearly.
40:03These these investigations of
40:04the 1990s were not complete.
40:06There's a whole list of currently
40:08ongoing investigations of physical
40:10human remains in various institutes,
40:12and I won't go through this whole list.
40:15I only want to refer to the first 2 in
40:19Berlin and at the Max Planck Society's
40:22again the Max Planck societies are the.
40:25The successes of the
40:27Kaiser William Institutes.
40:28Now the investigations in Berlin started
40:32after events of the summer of 2014,
40:35when,
40:35during routine excavations,
40:37bone fragments were found on the property
40:41of the Free University of Berlin,
40:44now finding bone fragments in routine
40:47excavations is not that uncommon
40:49in large urban centers like Berlin
40:52with a history that they have.
40:55But this particular did cheer
40:57with these bone fragments.
40:59Here was in the garden of
41:01this particular building.
41:03Here in this is the former Kaiser
41:05Wilhelm Institute for anthropology,
41:07human heredity and eugenics in Berlin Dahlem.
41:10This whole property was taken over by the
41:14Free University of Berlin after the war.
41:16Now what we need to know about the
41:19history of this building is the fact
41:22that in 1942 Oregon Fisher retired.
41:25And his successor was that
41:27there was the most of
41:30my flyer from Farcial,
41:32an internationally respected twin researcher
41:34who was also the mentor of users manual,
41:38who of course was the physician who
41:41performed criminal experiments on
41:43Twins in Auschwitz and specimens
41:45from his experience there.
41:47He sent to Frank for sure, because they
41:50actually shared a few research grants.
41:53Now this historical context.
41:55Was overlooked in the routine
41:58investigation of the bone fragments.
42:00They were correctly, but routinely handled.
42:03They were deemed an identifiable and
42:06incinerated as it was said by the law.
42:10However, this overlook of the
42:12historical significance led to a very
42:15large public outcry because here,
42:17another set of human remains at might
42:21originally hail from victims killed
42:23in Auschwitz had gone up in smoke.
42:27And round about the same time it was
42:29revealed that the Max Planck Institutes
42:32actually still held many specimens
42:34from victims in their collections,
42:36even though they had officially
42:38performed large revisions of
42:40their collections or 1990s,
42:41so that the Max Planck Society
42:44launched another audit and another
42:46research project on victims.
42:47The specimen that you see here
42:50is a brain specimen.
42:51Former euthanasia victim.
42:53So at that time my colleagues and
42:56I started discussing the necessity
42:58of a formal protocol of standard
43:00for the handling of.
43:02Human remains from potential
43:03Holocaust victims.
43:04Now we knew that there existed many
43:06guidelines and recommendations from
43:08various professional disciplines.
43:10An form.
43:10For example, the museum guilt in Europe,
43:13but we had the impression that these
43:16disciplines often did not talk to each other,
43:19and certainly none of these guidelines
43:21included the voice of those people whose
43:24human remains were actually concerned here,
43:27and especially in the
43:28context of the Holocaust,
43:30we felt that we needed.
43:32Jewish voice here.
43:33And so we met in 2017 for an symposium
43:36at Yad Vashem with experts on the
43:39Jewish perspective with archaeologists,
43:42anthropologists,
43:42and medical historians,
43:43and formulated their recommendations
43:45on how to deal with the Holocaust
43:48area human remains.
43:49Now,
43:49I can't go through all 10 very practical
43:53recommendations that we formulated there.
43:55You can read them in the
43:57link that I've given here,
43:59but I would like to emphasize that
44:02we saw an absolute priority on
44:04the need of the identification.
44:07Of these human remains so that we can
44:10retrieve the history of the individual
44:12victims to give them a dignified burial,
44:15to give them a complete documentation and
44:18to commemorate them by name in person.
44:21At the center of the these recommendations
44:24stands the Vienna Protocol,
44:26which is a responsive formulated by
44:28Rabbi Jewels of Pollock on the question
44:31what to do with Jewish or possibly
44:34Jewish human remains when they are
44:36discovered a response and is a scholarly,
44:39legal and ethical evaluation in the
44:42Jewish tradition was formulated by Rabbi
44:44Joseph Pollock in collaboration with a
44:47medical ethicist and medical historian
44:49Michael Grodin from Boston University.
44:51Here they formulate probably one of the
44:54first response are on this question,
44:56but definitely the first opinion
44:58on what to do with data.
45:00And by the way,
45:02Rabbi Pollock is Chief Justice of
45:04the rabbinical cord of New England.
45:07He is an expert in medical ethics and
45:09also a childhood survivor of Esther,
45:12Bergen, Bergen, Belsen and like I said,
45:15this responsum is probably the 1st that
45:17also includes an opinion on the use of
45:20data from that's a victim specifically.
45:23The data that are accumulated in
45:25the images of the perk of Atlas.
45:27There's a specific paragraph
45:28in this response,
45:29and it reads in the following manner.
45:33The use of these images would certainly
45:35be permitted by most authorities to
45:38help save lives after the Jewish
45:40principle of Pikuach Nefesh,
45:42but it is tide to a very clear condition.
45:46That requires making it known to one and
45:49all just exactly what these drawings are.
45:52In this way,
45:53the data recorded at least some of the
45:55dignity to which they are entitled.
45:58That is,
45:58whenever we use the perk of Atlas images,
46:01even if we don't know who these victims were,
46:04We at least try to accord them the
46:07dignity that they truly are entitled to.
46:10This part of the Vienna Protocol
46:12goes back to a new discussion
46:14surrounding the Prograf Atlas.
46:16It arose in the following manner.
46:18Professor Susan McKinnon,
46:19Issaquah,
46:20reconstructive surgeon at Washu
46:21in Saint Louis,
46:22and she has been using the perk of Atlas
46:25in 1981 in complex surgical cases.
46:28She's important,
46:28formed about the history and
46:30always includes it in her teaching
46:33when she uses the images,
46:34even teaching of patient,
46:36she uses this history,
46:37but she and her colleague Andrew.
46:39He wanted to go further and actually
46:42include some of the pink of.
46:44Images in an online video platform
46:46that they have created for Global
46:49Education on rare and difficult
46:51nerve reconstruction surgeries.
46:53This video platform serves particularly
46:55crisis regions in the world where
46:58people cannot easily travel and
47:00they have only this access to
47:02this type of information.
47:04So in 2016 they approached
47:06Elsevier for the Copyright,
47:08but Elsevier refused to give them
47:10the Copyright on ethical reasons
47:12because of the nasty background.
47:15So before pursuing this topic
47:17any further with Elsevier,
47:18they wanted to reassure themselves
47:20or find out at all whether it
47:23was permissible from the victims
47:25POV to use the perk of image.
47:27Hence the paragraph on the images in the
47:30responsive and now based on the response,
47:33and they have published a surgical case
47:35study that I would highly recommend to
47:38anybody who teaches Biomedical Ethics.
47:40These days it is.
47:42It gives a historical and
47:43ethical framework for questions.
47:45Concerning the use of the perk
47:47up Atlas in the management of
47:49anatomically complex and difficult
47:51surgical cases with special attention
47:54to implications for medical ethics,
47:56strong from Jewish law,
47:57I should also like to note that
48:00justice here Elsevier has now
48:02transferred the remaining paragraph
48:04originals to the Medical University
48:06of Vienna for documentation and for
48:09the creation of a memorial space
48:11for the victims in the Beautiful
48:14Medical Museum Historical Museum that
48:16Medical University has in Vienna,
48:18the user fenum Now we believe
48:20that the Vienna Protocol
48:22is formulated in such a practical
48:24manner that makes it widely
48:26applicable beyond the Jewish context,
48:28because we see very clear parallels
48:30to questions about the handling of
48:32human remains from other contexts
48:34of crimes against humanity.
48:36And here is just one example,
48:38and the group that we have been
48:40in contact with because they are
48:42dealing with similar problems,
48:44the survivors of their mother
48:45and baby homes in Ireland were
48:47orphans have vanished and basically
48:49ended up underground here into
48:51warm in the County of Galway.
48:53This is a yard underground.
48:55There have been found skeletons of
48:58nearly 800 infants and children,
49:01and the survivors and possible
49:03relatives of these children are in
49:06contact with the Irish government.
49:08It Irish government has launched
49:10a large investigation.
49:12These human remains have
49:14still not been exhumed.
49:16the Vatican has chimed in just in July
49:19of this year and the survivors and and.
49:23Relatives of these children are
49:26looking for identification of the
49:28individual human remains here.
49:31No,
49:31I also believe that the Nazi history
49:34of Anatomy Shines a very clear lied on
49:37current critical questions in anatomy
49:39as unethical handling of anatomical
49:41body still exist in the US and World Wide.
49:45And here I would like to
49:48extend my title two books,
49:50bones,
49:50bodies and brokers at just as one
49:53example of unethical handling,
49:55at least in my opinion.
49:57And this is the.
49:59Documentation published by Reuters on the for
50:02profit body brokers in the United States.
50:05What we have here is private companies
50:08that have established private body
50:11donation companies or normally
50:13anatomical body donation programs
50:16are in the hands of either anatomical
50:18boards of state or in the hands,
50:21usually of universities.
50:23But these are private companies
50:25that offer relatively cost free.
50:28So dealing with the bodies of
50:30relatives to families and these
50:32are usually indigent family.
50:34So basically these companies prey on
50:36those who cannot afford a burial and
50:39the bodies are then brokered around
50:41the United States for postgraduate
50:44medical studies also sold worldwide.
50:46So I would like to urge all of us to
50:49always ask whenever we are dealing
50:52with human bodies in medical education
50:55to ask where do the bodies come from.
50:59Where do the tissues come from that
51:01we work with in the labs and in times
51:04of online anatomy teaching that I'm
51:06doing extensively these days where
51:08we use these 3D apps that students
51:10like to use for their anatomy learning?
51:13We have to ask,
51:14where do the images in the data come from?
51:17Where does the knowledge come from
51:19that we work with in a daily manner
51:22and just in terms of these 3D images,
51:25when you go to these companies and
51:27ask them what the source of their?
51:30Data is for the images that they created.
51:33They very often will answer that
51:35at least one data set comes from
51:37the National Library of Medicine
51:39from the visible human project
51:42that they launched in the 1990s,
51:44and the Mail visible human
51:46actually was Joseph,
51:47Paul, Jernigan and executed murderer
51:49in Texas, whose bodies who actually
51:52donated his body on death row and the
51:55body was then used for the production
51:57of the visible human data set.
52:00Now again, it's a good questions here
52:02to be asked is the validity of capital
52:06punishment and also the validity of
52:08the question of free will death row.
52:11Now I will come to my conclusion
52:13anatomists use the bodies of Nazi
52:15victims in education and research
52:17committing ethical transgressions that
52:19included a paradigm shift for work with
52:22a dead to work with the future dead.
52:26They buried victims,
52:27remains an unmarked graves,
52:28or lost them in collections without names.
52:31Saucon Adamas were completed in
52:33the complete physical emulation
52:35and destruction of the memory
52:37of victims of the Nazi regime.
52:39I see it not just as our duty,
52:42but truly as a privilege to restore
52:44the biographies and enable the
52:45memorialization of these victims,
52:47and so I will end with some of their names
52:50and faces and with the word by my colleague.
52:53Hence your him long for getting
52:55them would be the victims final.
52:57Any lation.
52:57Thank you very much.
53:02Thank you so much,
53:04professor Hildebrandt that was
53:06very intense, very intensive,
53:0950 minutes or so but very informative.
53:12Appreciate that very much.
53:15I want to open up now to the to the folks
53:21lend office over the next half hour or so.
53:26We're going to have questions
53:28for Professor Hillebrand.
53:30A conversation as is our practice.
53:33I'm there is, as always a hard stop at 5:30,
53:36so I want to apologize now for whoever it is,
53:39who's in the buff to ask a question
53:41at 5:29 I won't be able to get
53:44to all the questions or comments,
53:46but I want to accommodate
53:47as many of you as possible,
53:49so please through the chat
53:50part of the zoom function.
53:52Please type your questions into chat and
53:54then I'll be sharing them with Sabina
53:56and we will begin the conversation.
53:58I think I'll go first so you know,
54:00this was certainly a remarkable conversation.
54:02Let me just make sure this isn't.
54:05Something that I need related to this.
54:08Um? OK, hope do I say 530.
54:12Thank you Karen will stop at 6:30
54:15and I apologize if I said 5:30
54:18we will stop at 6:30 sharp.
54:20Thank you.
54:20Sabina, I want to ask you for
54:23but this is quite remarkable.
54:25So the Atlas, the Ferncroft Atlas.
54:27Now you mentioned one surgeon out in
54:29Saint Louis who is still using it,
54:31is this Atlas still used widely
54:34by neurosurgeons?
54:35Yeah,
54:35as we saw from the survey of 182
54:38international nerve surgeons,
54:3913% are still using it
54:42and we just getting in.
54:44This is going to be published
54:46in the next few weeks.
54:48This survey of oral surgeons and
54:51they are also still using it to
54:53a certain extent. The court you
54:56mentioned from the kind of forgot
54:58the name of the of the organization
55:00of the report from the New England,
55:02the Chief Justice than England
55:05rabbinical court. Rabbi Pollock,
55:06I believe it was yes, yes,
55:08who commented on this and put forth
55:10with specific rulings and regulations.
55:12How did that relate specifically to the use
55:15of something like the print contentless?
55:17Because this is something that we talk
55:19about in general use of Nazi information,
55:22but in reality the information the
55:24common wisdom is that there's really
55:26not much information from that era
55:28that's particularly useful now,
55:29but this Atlas certainly stands
55:31as an important exception to that.
55:33So how does that that court's ruling?
55:35Relate to the Atlas or usefully
55:38Atlas so personally for
55:39me it is a guideline that it says
55:41I can use the images in certain
55:44situations where I for example,
55:46in this talk I will show an image
55:49from the pro golf outlets to talk
55:52about the history of the Atlas.
55:54I wouldn't use the Atlas in normal
55:56teaching for sure unless I'm going
55:59to be able to talk about the full
56:01history and about the victims.
56:03I will not use images from the
56:06Atlas in routine teaching.
56:07But my colleague,
56:09the nerves are our colleagues,
56:10the nerve surgeon Susan McKinnon.
56:12She is a highly specialized nerve
56:14surgeon and she has learned with
56:17the apples and nose to find certain
56:19certain structures and this is
56:21what it's actually elaborated on.
56:23In that case,
56:24study that she sometimes actually
56:26stops for surgery when she can't
56:28identify certain nerve structures.
56:30She she's often, you know,
56:32the specialist who will work in
56:34areas that have been previously
56:36dissected by other surgeons.
56:37So she will be the last last expert
56:41that patients come to in desperation.
56:43So she will stop a surgery and
56:46actually bring in the Atlas
56:48images and consult them too.
56:51To re calibrate her search for these
56:53structures that she's looking for
56:55and This is why she feels for certain
56:57teaching moments in her online platform.
57:00It would be very useful to
57:02have these specific images,
57:03but she couldn't use them in the
57:06online platform because Elsevier
57:07didn't give the Copyright.
57:10But the use of them in surgery
57:13is considered acceptable by that
57:14rabbinical court.
57:15Yes, because it is about making
57:17a patients life much better.
57:19So when you read into that case history,
57:22that's about a woman who had who
57:24had surgery in her knee and they
57:27actually damaged the seven as nerve,
57:29and she had such pain that she basically
57:32wanted to have her leg amputated.
57:34And she came to Susan,
57:36because nobody else could help her,
57:38and she was able to.
57:40Untangle that that damaged saffin
57:42is nerve and to relieve the pain,
57:45but only with the help of going back to
57:48the perk of Atlas and that put Suzan into.
57:51Basically,
57:52she felt very clearly that she
57:54actually shouldn't use the images,
57:56but she needed to use them and
57:58this is what is why she addressed
58:01the question to the rabbi.
58:03Thank you very much.
58:05I have a question for you from
58:07someone who's been listening.
58:08This is thank you for this
58:10moving and important talk.
58:12I'm looking at my medical school
58:14anatomy text which was Clemente 1981.
58:16Yes and the forward.
58:17He acknowledges the portico fat.
58:19Listen says that many
58:20illustrations in his text.
58:21So in Clemente, yes,
58:23are taken from Pern cough.
58:24Indeed,
58:25I've found illustrations from White Porsche,
58:27wrote the end Stressor and Bhatti
58:29print cost assistance as the most
58:31recent addition of committee use.
58:32These illustrations into other American text.
58:35Was Clemente aware of the
58:36Providence of these images?
58:38I believe
58:38with the 4th or 5th edition of the
58:41Clemente he became aware of it and was
58:44deeply disturbed when he learned about
58:46the background of the pro quo vadis.
58:49Clemente himself didn't know
58:50this and try to have the redrawn.
58:53I believe I should also say that
58:55Eric Happy the man with a swastika
58:58worked for Sobota after the war.
59:00So many of the images in the suborder
59:03that we all love and work with.
59:06Are basically re drawings of the perk
59:08of Atlas, so people have asked me,
59:11you know can't wait.
59:13It just Simply put away the perk of apples.
59:17But the pragmatic fact is that it's
59:19being used in so many that knowledge
59:22that was gained for example by early
59:25Flippy in creating the program images.
59:28He used that knowledge to redraw
59:30basically the same images for
59:32the Sobotta Atlas and Clemente
59:34outright use them for his various.
59:37I believe for the first four 5th
59:41five editions.
59:42This certainly brings it home, right?
59:44So you know, because Clemente was what
59:46we use when I was in medical school,
59:48and I suspect so many so many
59:50positions around the world.
59:51Certainly United States use Clemente,
59:53which is to say that the print off work
59:55is essentially been some small part.
59:57And for neurosurgeons,
59:58a much larger part but some small
60:00part of all of our medical education.
01:00:02Or, I suspect most of the positions
01:00:04on the call and working at Yale
01:00:06and Harvard and other places, yeah?
01:00:08Another question for you please.
01:00:11Oh, give me a moment here from
01:00:14my friend Stuart Weinzimer.
01:00:15I'll certainly the principle of Peacock
01:00:17nefesh can be very broadly interpreted.
01:00:20Are their opinions of other
01:00:22rabbis on this point,
01:00:23particularly since there is
01:00:24no one chief rabbi,
01:00:26or no formal hierarchical structure
01:00:28in Judaism and covenants.
01:00:30As far as we know.
01:00:31So basically bill seidman.
01:00:33How are these rails? McKinnon,
01:00:34I worked on the subject for awhile.
01:00:36As far as we know, Rabbi Pollock is
01:00:39one of the few experts who actually
01:00:41has been working on the question of
01:00:43what to do with human remains and not
01:00:46see data over the last 2030 years.
01:00:48So if you know a rabbi, we'd be more
01:00:52than happy to have more opinions.
01:00:54We also would be more than happy to
01:00:56have people from other religions.
01:00:59Not just religions,
01:01:00really from any anybody who feels
01:01:02like they can put together,
01:01:03and a clear ethical framework that
01:01:05we can refer to on this question.
01:01:08It's not that we, you know,
01:01:10were looking for only a Jewish opinion.
01:01:13In this case we were looking for
01:01:15an expert in medical ethics who
01:01:17had a clear framework.
01:01:19That they could actually
01:01:20address this question in.
01:01:22You know it's it's obviously very
01:01:24sensitive question for so many folks,
01:01:25but I will tell you from having studied this
01:01:28little bit that they're very thoughtful,
01:01:29intelligent people who come down on
01:01:31both sides of that of that question.
01:01:34Another question please.
01:01:36It was fascinating lecture.
01:01:38Just wanted to mention that
01:01:40during my studies in Semmelweis
01:01:41University in Budapest in 2006,
01:01:43they use some of those anatomic
01:01:45books as part of the programs
01:01:47and they were proud of the books.
01:01:49I don't know if that presumably
01:01:51they were aware of the source of the
01:01:54information over books at the time.
01:01:56Yeah, and
01:01:57I should say not only the physical
01:01:59books are still being used,
01:02:02but there are many digital copies.
01:02:04Actually, there's an archive
01:02:05out there that gives him out
01:02:08without any historical background
01:02:09and we are trying to, you know.
01:02:12Basically make this story better known,
01:02:14so at a minimum this it should
01:02:16be transparent that people know
01:02:17what they're dealing with as
01:02:19they working with these.
01:02:20With these images,
01:02:21I think that's a really good point.
01:02:23Now I wonder if here at Yale and
01:02:25maybe someone on the call can respond,
01:02:27but I wonder if at Harvard or at Yale,
01:02:30if the students are made aware.
01:02:32I don't know if they still
01:02:33use Clemente, I'm I'm.
01:02:35I would be guessing to say they do. But do
01:02:37you? Are you aware?
01:02:39Sevilla? So now we we.
01:02:40We are actually using all sorts
01:02:42of other sources these days,
01:02:43and certainly I make sure because
01:02:45I'm responsible for anatomy
01:02:46education at Harvard Medic.
01:02:47So I make sure that if they
01:02:49see perk of images when my if
01:02:52my colleagues you some that I
01:02:54tell them about the history and
01:02:56yeah, yeah, I think that's very important.
01:02:59And of course if it's one step removed
01:03:01so I would say for anyone using
01:03:03Clemente or any other Atlas that
01:03:05itself borrowed from burning cough
01:03:07that all those students should be made
01:03:10aware of the history of what they're
01:03:12looking at as well as a as perhaps a
01:03:15gesture of respect to the victims.
01:03:17I want to ask you about something
01:03:19a little bit different.
01:03:20There was for a time and maybe it's
01:03:22still going on and I just missed it and
01:03:25this is something that I suspect you've
01:03:27got expertise in and people may have thought,
01:03:29but it troubled me when it was
01:03:31happening and I'm worried about it.
01:03:32There was a time when you could
01:03:34go in many US cities.
01:03:36They were very proud of having
01:03:37these human body displays.
01:03:38You must be feeling with
01:03:40what I'm talking bout.
01:03:41These were these were cadavers that
01:03:42were had the skin removed and so
01:03:44you can speak at such beautiful
01:03:46view of the details of the muscle.
01:03:48Other musculature,
01:03:48for example,
01:03:49and someone would be posed I'm missing.
01:03:51I never went some of these things,
01:03:54but I saw pictures of them.
01:03:56Someone might be posed.
01:03:57I don't know where the tennis
01:03:59racket or or something like that.
01:04:01Are you aware of
01:04:03what became of all of that?
01:04:05But the source host bodies was?
01:04:07Yeah yeah. So basically,
01:04:08the original plastination exhibit
01:04:10was created by winter fun Hagens,
01:04:12and there were,
01:04:13I believe at some point,
01:04:14up to 10 copycat exhibits.
01:04:16The most famous one that went
01:04:18through US American cities mostly.
01:04:20How was the exhibit by Premier
01:04:22exhibits the sourcing of these
01:04:24bodies was often very questionable,
01:04:26but wonderful Haggen's in the beginning
01:04:28certainly use unclaimed bodies.
01:04:30There was actually an audit of a Chinese
01:04:33factory that he was using in the.
01:04:36UH-20 odds and when they found
01:04:38bodies that clearly stemmed
01:04:40from executed Chinese citizens,
01:04:43then with the Premier exhibit, same story.
01:04:46So there is a question about
01:04:49the sourcing of the bodies.
01:04:52The ethics of that.
01:04:54There is a question of for
01:04:57profit making with human bodies.
01:05:00There's a question of ethics of aesthetics.
01:05:03So actually there's an
01:05:05international group of.
01:05:07Anatomist who has drawn up some guidelines
01:05:10on plastination or some recommendations,
01:05:12including on what to do with
01:05:15plastination exhibits.
01:05:15Personally,
01:05:16I you know,
01:05:17I find them unethical.
01:05:20Yeah, I was surprised to this
01:05:22one years when they come out.
01:05:24This was so commonly
01:05:25accepted within the society,
01:05:26greater just wondering on a very
01:05:28basic level to these people realize
01:05:30what they were signing up for. Did
01:05:32they sign up for it at all?
01:05:35I mean, one different happens these days
01:05:37has its own private body donation program,
01:05:39and these people are fully aware of
01:05:41what they're doing and they want to
01:05:44be exhibited after after their desk.
01:05:46Whether that makes it ethical is
01:05:47the next question.
01:05:49There's a question here I missed.
01:05:51Let me go back.
01:05:52Thank you so much for sharing
01:05:54your work history of anatomical
01:05:56dissection of the US is also fraught
01:05:58with violation of an experiment
01:06:00on Black and indigenous bodies.
01:06:02How do you see the Vienna protocol
01:06:05being applicable in the context of
01:06:07the racialized history of the US?
01:06:09Yeah, so there's much
01:06:10work that needs to be done in this
01:06:12country is thankfully in terms of human
01:06:15remains from indigenous populations.
01:06:16We have one of the few
01:06:18examples where guidelines.
01:06:20Became law with an opera Los
01:06:22where basically it is legal.
01:06:25There are legal regulations
01:06:26that the indigenous skulls,
01:06:28for example very often or
01:06:31another skeletal remains,
01:06:32have to be returned to the
01:06:35indigenous populations and worldwide.
01:06:37Actually the US law is the only
01:06:39example that I could find where
01:06:42the indigenous voice was heard
01:06:45and actually made into law,
01:06:47and we have these these.
01:06:50This week it is returning
01:06:51to the original population.
01:06:53We have this ongoing in many
01:06:56universities currently in terms
01:06:57of the black history that is a
01:07:00black history that's completely
01:07:01under research in my point of view,
01:07:04I know of a British group that
01:07:06has done some research.
01:07:08Edward Hopper in here in the
01:07:11United States has done a little
01:07:13bit of 19th century research,
01:07:15but that definitely we need
01:07:17to know more here.
01:07:20Think I have another question
01:07:22for you in the Q&A. Home.
01:07:25Oh, I've learned from the Nether textbook.
01:07:28I learned from the network textbook.
01:07:30And as you might know,
01:07:32we have a medical school here in
01:07:34New Haven named after not at Yale,
01:07:36but our our sister institution and Quippy
01:07:38adds the Netter School of Medicine.
01:07:40Do you know the Providence of those images?
01:07:43As an aside,
01:07:44how do we understand pediatric anatomy
01:07:46in order these bodies come from?
01:07:49OK, these are two different questions.
01:07:51Let us party, probably in the first years,
01:07:54because that would have
01:07:56been in the 1950 sixty 70s.
01:07:58These would have been unclaimed bodies
01:08:00at the time in the United States because
01:08:03body donation programs only started up
01:08:06to become fully functional in the 1960s
01:08:08seventies in the US and also in Europe.
01:08:11Letter has its own problem because it
01:08:14shows only white young male bodies only
01:08:16if women when he absolutely has to,
01:08:19when they had to shut the female anatomy.
01:08:22So we're currently actually looking
01:08:24at data with a student group.
01:08:26Our students last year here at Harvard
01:08:29Medical School made us very much aware
01:08:31of that bias in medical illustration,
01:08:34and we're trying to collect images that
01:08:36are more diverse and more inclusive,
01:08:39but that really is a work in progress
01:08:42that's pioneer work right there?
01:08:44Because most of us use an Atlas like lettuce,
01:08:47which is basically white skinned
01:08:49and also clearly.
01:08:50All of that population in terms of
01:08:54the pediatric atlases of Anatomy,
01:08:57I would think that most of them
01:09:00are still historical ones actually,
01:09:03especially in Austria and Germany.
01:09:06The laws were written in a way that
01:09:08very often the Anatomical Institutes
01:09:11were the only places that accepted
01:09:13bodies of infants and still Borns
01:09:16for a burial or promise.
01:09:18The burial to these these children so
01:09:20that they very often ended up in the
01:09:24Anatomical Institute and were used
01:09:26of course for anatomical purposes
01:09:28in the creation of these atlases.
01:09:31So there are some very famous
01:09:33atlases that came out of the school
01:09:36of Vienna specifically.
01:09:37And for example,
01:09:39at the University of Hallel
01:09:41they still held bodies of such
01:09:45dissected children that hailed from
01:09:48the time of the 1930s and 40s,
01:09:51but these were recently actually
01:09:54investigated and buried.
01:09:55So this is a different story altogether.
01:10:00Thank you, thank you.
01:10:01Are you familiar?
01:10:02I wonder with our Cushing
01:10:04Center in the brain?
01:10:05Is Riverdale. Yeah yeah, yeah,
01:10:06I wonder if you have any
01:10:08thoughts on that and then it
01:10:10concerns about that so that that
01:10:12people have written about that.
01:10:14They know much more about
01:10:15the cushion collection,
01:10:16but the way I understand it,
01:10:18that also has its own
01:10:20ethical questions. Yeah,
01:10:21well, I think I think it does.
01:10:23I mean I some some folks here have
01:10:25raised questions on that score as well,
01:10:27specifically that the names of the
01:10:29patients were also on display as
01:10:31well as the brains in the lesions.
01:10:34Um? I think that works is through
01:10:36the questions that the crew had.
01:10:39If anybody else has any questions
01:10:41will take another minute.
01:10:42In the meantime, Sabina,
01:10:43if you want to leave us with the
01:10:45thought that this has obviously
01:10:47tremendous implications for how
01:10:49we behave and what we're aware of
01:10:51going forward and how we respect
01:10:52the bodies that we work with,
01:10:54is there any final thoughts that
01:10:56you might have for the group
01:10:58that you'd like to share?
01:11:00Yeah, basically those four
01:11:02questions that I had in my last
01:11:05slides here in my presentation.
01:11:07We really have to think about where
01:11:10do the data come from historically
01:11:13that we've been working with.
01:11:16We have to be aware of
01:11:18where were bodies come.
01:11:19Body parts come from,
01:11:21especially in our postgraduate education.
01:11:23These are all these surgical trainings
01:11:25where you go into hotels and do
01:11:28instrumentation learning and so on.
01:11:30Ask where the bodies come from.
01:11:32Make people aware of the fact
01:11:35that very often these come
01:11:36from for profit institutions.
01:11:38Ask where the tissues in your labs come from.
01:11:42Ask where the data comes
01:11:44from in your 3D Anatomical.
01:11:46Images these images don't
01:11:47come out of thin air.
01:11:49They are based on data from human bodies.
01:11:53In these bodies were persons
01:11:54and we do need to respect them.
01:11:59Thank you so much.
01:12:00I have to say that the one of the when
01:12:03you commented on the Clarice Teleforce,
01:12:04I learned about Clara cells.
01:12:06And then while you were speaking,
01:12:07I said they can't possibly
01:12:09still call them Clara cells.
01:12:10And of course they don't.
01:12:11Those are club sells now,
01:12:13is that right? Yes,
01:12:15so there's also another more complicated
01:12:17term that I forgot, but that's
01:12:20OK. 'cause I guess if it is,
01:12:23if it is an obligation or if it is,
01:12:26it's a wise idea for us too.
01:12:28It's a wise idea for us to ask
01:12:31where this tissue come from,
01:12:33where these bodies come from.
01:12:35That one might say that whenever there
01:12:37is a situation where teaching is being
01:12:40done using human remains of any kind,
01:12:42or is it perhaps the obligation
01:12:44of the teaching of the teacher.
01:12:47Just tell somebody.
01:12:48Here's where this came from.
01:12:50So for us actually in out, you know.
01:12:54And that's the same. Actually a deal.
01:12:56I know that for a fact honoring the donor
01:13:00respecting the donor, you know anatomy.
01:13:03Educational framework is a is
01:13:05an essential cornerstone of
01:13:07our work in anatomy education.
01:13:09Because in anatomy or students for
01:13:11the first time encounter their
01:13:14first patient and engage with them.
01:13:16And at this time of zoom teaching,
01:13:19we very, very desperately.
01:13:21Note the absence of our first teachers,
01:13:24the donors.
01:13:26Yeah, that's that's really
01:13:27insightful with one last question
01:13:29that came through here, which is.
01:13:30It's a very broad question,
01:13:32but maybe you have a kind of how should
01:13:34we teach anatomy in an ethical way.
01:13:36You've already given us some
01:13:37very good advice on that score.
01:13:39I don't know if there's a.
01:13:40If there is a response to that
01:13:42that you can share with us,
01:13:44that might be helpful to all of us
01:13:46who are involved in teaching but
01:13:47teaching anatomy in an ethical way.
01:13:51Personally, for me it starts with Adona.
01:13:53As I said before, it needs to be.
01:13:56I want to work with body dornes.
01:13:59People have volunteered their bodies to
01:14:01have others work with them and teach them.
01:14:04And Fortunately most universities
01:14:06in the United States have such
01:14:08voluntary body donation programs,
01:14:10making the students aware
01:14:11of them being aware of.
01:14:13We have developed the concept that
01:14:16we've developed actually from.
01:14:17UK colleague of Relational Anatomy.
01:14:19We are very much aware of our own
01:14:22relations to the donor of a relation to our
01:14:25students or students relation to the donor.
01:14:28We have historical enrichment programs
01:14:30that go with our anatomy teaching and
01:14:33we talk about two uh students daily.
01:14:35We have minutes of silence in
01:14:37addition to a memorial service,
01:14:39so there are ways of teaching
01:14:42anatomy ethically.
01:14:43And for me it starts with a history.
01:14:47This has been on.
01:14:48This has been an extremely valuable
01:14:51history lesson for all of us,
01:14:53and obviously it's an example
01:14:54of our understanding.
01:14:55History makes us better and how we
01:14:58live our lives and serve our patients
01:15:00and teach our students here and now.
01:15:03So I want to thank you so
01:15:05much on behalf of everyone.
01:15:07And and thanks to everybody
01:15:08who's who who sent in questions.
01:15:10Thanks to all who attended
01:15:11and Doctor Hill rent.
01:15:12We are in your debt.
01:15:14We thank you so much for coming and
01:15:15sharing this information with us.
01:15:17Thank you
01:15:17so very much for having me and
01:15:20listening to me. Bye bye bye.
01:15:22Thank you so much thank you all will
01:15:24see how many of you are next program.