Mengele medicus: medicine's Nazi heritage

Abstract

Nazi medicine is commonly considered to be an aberration that began and ended with the horrors of the Hitler regime. But its beginnings were more gradual and its legacy is more pernicious. Data derived from research conducted on unknowing and unwilling subjects in death camps continue to be cited in authoritative contemporary medical literature. Nazi medicine has become a part of the professional genotype of modern medicine. This continuing influence of Nazi medicine raises profound questions for the epistemology and morality of medicine.