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Demon Doctors:Physicians as Serial Killers

Japanese Biowarfare Experiments on Humans

From: "Chapter 8: Viruses and Vivisections: Japan's Inhuman Experiments" in Demon Doctors: Physicians as Serial Killers
By Kenneth V. Iserson, M.D.
Galen Press, Ltd., Tucson, AZ,

        This chapter chronicles Japan's foray into biological warfare, with the leadership of a military physician-researcher and mass-murderer, Dr. Ishii Shiro, who commanded the infamous Unit 731. Dr. Ishii set this terrible story in motion through his driving ambition, lack of morality, and persistent efforts to stimulate Japan's development of biological weaponry (BW). Over little more than a decade, he and his physician-researcher colleagues were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. This is a composite scenario of two of their well-documented vivisections (dissection of live people).
        These experiments provided the information for the United States' biowarfare program. As described in the chapter, in return for their unique and deadly information, none of the physician-killers were ever prosecuted-and many went on to prestigious and often lucrative careers in the medical-research world.

Manchuria, 1941.
        Lin Minga and Tamara Kazursky shrank back in fear, petrified by the sight before them. They stood at the entrance to an operating room with two tables, wearing only flimsy gowns. But neither of them needed an operation.
        Petite, 17-year-old Lin Minga had been living with her parents and working in the local factory when the dreaded kenpeitai, the Japanese military police, had taken her to their headquarters for interrogation. Her brother was in the communist-led anti-Japanese resistance, but she did not know anything about it. Yet, after three days of torture, she was bound hand and foot to another woman, put in the back of a closed van, and driven to a prison. A virgin, she had been forced to have sex with numerous men, all of whom, she later discovered, had venereal diseases. Not surprisingly, she became pregnant. During her pregnancy, the Japanese doctors repeatedly examined her and took blood, urine, and vaginal tests. She had given birth to a beautiful son two days ago. Now she had been dragged to this death laboratory.
         Nineteen-year-old Tamara Kazursky, a beautiful White Russian girl whose family had lived in Harbin for more than 20 years, worked at her parents' bakery and was engaged to be married. She had been walking home when she was caught in a "sweep" by the local militia. The soldiers had been told to get subjects for experiments, and she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Quickly bundled into a tight "package," she was thrown onto a sealed boxcar and taken to this chamber of horrors. She, too, had been forced to have sex with numerous men, contracting a venereal disease that was causing her severe lower abdominal pain. The Japanese doctors seemed to take a special interest in her once the pain developed.
        "Get up on the table and take off your gowns," said the Japanese nurse in broken Chinese. "This is a medical procedure, and won't hurt a bit."
        Orderlies and doctors quickly stripped the young women and pushed them onto the tables, securing their arms, legs, and torsos. As the two women stared up in horror, eight men in white clustered around the table. One doctor, seemingly in charge, said "No anesthesia; it might compromise our findings."
        At each table, a doctor took a scalpel and quickly cut open the women's abdomens. The girls let out nightmarish screams as their bellies were ripped open and their entrails exposed. Lin Minga had enough composure to yell, "Kill me, but not my baby," before she lapsed into unconsciousness. Tamara's body continued to twitch as her uterus and ovaries were removed and blood sprayed the ceiling. Unnoticed by the doctors, their hearts eventually stopped and their agony ended. The doctors had the samples they wanted. Their bodies were dragged to the incinerators and their identities lost forever. None of the doctors felt any guilt. They had done this numerous times and anyway, these were only worthless maruta [logs].

©Galen Press, Ltd., 2001