As a German SS Officer as well as a Nazi physician, Josef Mengele is
probably the most widely-known name on this list. Known as the “Angel of
Death” or even “Beautiful Devil,” Mengele was the main physician in charge
of determining which prisoners were best to keep as forced laborers, and who
were too weak and needed to be killed. Not only did Mengele choose the fate
of millions, he also was widely known for his human experiments. At
Auschwitz, Mengele was highly interested in learning more about heredity and
often did experiments on identical twins. It is said that he took 10 of
them, put them to sleep and then used chloroform to kill them, and dissected
each of them to compare the bodies. He also did an experiment were two twins
were sewn together by their veins to make conjoined twins. Besides these
experiments, he also conducted experiments on how to change eye color by
injected dye into the iris, amputating limbs and attempting to reattach
them, and sterilizing women.
Shiro Ishii
Shiro Ishii was a Japanese microbiologist as well as a physician. He was the
lieutenant general of Unit 731, which was a biological warfare unit during
the Second Sino-Japanese War. Despite being known as pushy and
self-centered, Ishii excelled in school and was stationed at the 1st Army
Hospital in Toyko. Those who supervised him were highly impressed, and he
received post-graduate medical schooling at Kyoto Imperial University. In
1942, Ishii began his tests on germ warfare by using bombs, firearms, and
other methods. He tested the germs on Chinese POWs as well as on civilians.
He did at time use the weapons on the battlefield. In any case, Ishii took
human experimentation into his own hands, and it is said that tens of
thousands of people died, due to weapons that exposed anthrax, cholera, the
bubonic plague, and others. He also did other experiments on people such as
forced abortions, simulated heart attacks, strokes, hypothermia, and
frostbite, and even vivisections.
Harry Howard Holmes (Herman Mudgett)
Harry Howard Holmes, born was Herman Mudgett, was the first serial killer to
be hanged in America. He went to the University of Michigan Medical School
in 1884 to become a doctor. During this time, he often stole bodies from the
school laboratory and disfigured them, and then claimed that the people had
been killed accidentally. Through this, he was able to collect insurance
from policies that he took out on each person. After he graduated, he moved
to Chicago. Here, he convinced a local pharmacy worker to allow him to take
over ownership of a hotel. At the hotel he experimented with bodies, often
letting the women he chose to be victims suffocate to death. The bodies were
often dissected, stripped of their flesh and made into skeleton models. He
then sold the bodies to medical schools.
Harold Shipman
Harold Shipman stands as the only British doctor in history that has been
found guilty of murdering his patients. Many say he is the most widely known
prolific serial killer in history. He has been convicted of killing 218
people, but the real number might be double that, since some of the victims
could not be identified. In 1974 he became a general practitioner in West
Yorkshire, and a year later was found forging prescriptions for pethidine
for personal use. He was fined but was able to continue to work. Over time,
many of his patients died, mostly due to an injection of diamorphine. Many
were concerned about the ever-growing number of cremation forms Shipman was
countersigning. He was also charged with forging a patient’s will. Though
set to serve a lifetime sentence after being convicted of 15 murders in
January 2000, Shipman was put into jail for four years, but on January 13,
2004 hanged himself in his prison cell.
Dr Walter Freeman - The Lobotomist
Though not your normal physician, Walter Freeman was a neurologist that
graduated from Yale and the University Of Pennsylvania Medical School. Even
though he didn’t set out with malicious intentions, Freeman completed over
3500 lobotomies within the U.S., most notably Rosemary Kennedy and many
others. While today lobotomies are rarely used, Freeman helped to perfect
them and made his claim to fame after being able to complete them
successfully and “heal” the patient. However, Freeman seemed to become very
zealous; using an ice pick from his kitchen to complete a lobotomy,
completing over 20 lobotomies in a day without use of a surgeon, and even
allowing the media to watch a lobotomy be performed that ultimately ended in
death, as the ice pick slipped into the patient’s brain. Believe it or not,
Freeman seemed unbothered by the man’s death and continued on to do another
surgery.
Jack Kevorkian
An extremely controversial topic in today’s world, Jack Kevorkian is known
for ending the lives of his terminally ill patient’s through assisted
suicide. He was a champion for the right and is often quoted saying “dying
is not a crime.” It is said that he allowed 130 or more of his patients to
die with his help. Kevorkian created his own euthanasia machines that would
allow a patient to die two ways. The first was the “Thanatron”, which used
an IV to inject the patient with saline, sodium thiopental, and potassium
chloride. He also used the “Mercitron,” which involved a gas mask that
utilized carbon monoxide. Eventually, his actions were investigated and he
was arrested on charges of second-degree murder and served jail-time from
1999-2007, but today is on parole.
