Medicine in Auschwitz The book Nazi Medicine: Doctors, Victims
and Medicine in Auschwitz by Howard Fertig explores the role of
medicine and those affected by it in the Auschwitz concentration
camp. The book is divided up into three parts: the experiments,
the doctor’s stories, and the camps after the end of the war. I
will focus on the experimental medicine (part one) in this
project. More specifically I will discuss the new experimental
medicine used to fight typhus, along with experimental typhus
and the main doctor who carried out these medicinal experiments;
Dr. Helmuth Vetter. A quick biography on Dr. Helmuth Vetter
tells that he was born on February 21, 1910 in Rastenburg,
Turingen. He was camp physician in Auschwitz and was also an
agent of the “Bayer” firm from the Hochst-Leverkusen
laboratories. While in Auschwitz he conducted experiments in
block 20 [the contagious diseases ward] from 1942 - 1944. More
specifically he conducted research on Preparation 3582, Ruthenol
and Periston for experimental pur