Brain Science under the Swastika
Brain Science under the Swastika
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卍字下的脑科学
DOI：
10.1093/oso/9780198728634.001.0001
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发表时间：
2020
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
L. Zeidman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
L. Zeidman
这始于对患有神经和精神疾病的患者的大规模灭绝，这些患者对希特勒政权来说是“无用的食客”。从1933年开始，神经精神病学专业被系统地“清洗”，但在此之前的几十年里，种族主义和优生学已经渗透到这个专业中。但到战争结束时，大约有27.5万名病人被杀害，这还不够。病人的大脑和身体的神经部分在战争期间和战后很长一段时间都被储存在科学出版物中使用。此外，患者本身也被以不道德的方式用于癫痫和多发性硬化症的实验。反抗纳粹的神经科学家相对较少，在被占领的国家取得了一些成功。大多数参与不道德行为的神经科学家在战后毫发无损地继续他们的职业生涯。很少有人对他们的行为做出专业或犯罪的回应，也很少有人后悔。在神经科学和医学伦理学的历史上，这样一个堕落的时代留下的遗产是，存在着保护患者和研究对象免受伤害的准则。但这种保护可能会受到政治极端的影响，只有通过了解可怕的过去，我们的职业才能自我监管。如果神经科学家个人意识到功利主义、不道德和无情心态的危险，他们可以保护病人和同事。
Eighty years ago the greatest mass murder of human beings of all time occurred in Nazi occupied Europe. This began with the mass extermination of patients with neurologic and psychiatric disorders that rendered them “useless eaters” to Hitler’s regime. The neuropsychiatric profession was systematically “cleansed” beginning in 1933, but racism and eugenics had infiltrated the specialty in the decades before that. With the installation of Nazi-principled neuroscientists, mass forced sterilization was enacted, which slowed down by the start of World War II and the advent of patient murder. But the murder of roughly 275,000 patients by the end of the war was not enough. The patients’ brains and neurologic body parts were stored and used in scientific publications both during and long after the war. Also, patients themselves were used in unethical ways for epilepsy and multiple sclerosis experiments. Relatively few neuroscientists resisted the Nazis, with some success in the occupied countries. Most neuroscientists involved in unethical actions continued their careers unscathed after the war. Few answered for their actions in a professional or criminal sense, and few repented. The legacy of such a depraved era in the history of neuroscience and medical ethics is that codes exist by which patients and research subjects are protected from harm. But this protection is possibly subject to political extremes and only by understanding the horrible past can our profession police itself. Individual neuroscientists can protect patients and colleagues if they are aware of the dangers of a utilitarian, unethical, and uncompassionate mindset.