Human Experimentation at Unit 731

Unit 731 is infamous for its human experimentation during its existence during World War 2. At least 3,000 men, women, and children were subjected as "marutas" or as logs to experimentations conducted by Unit 731 division at Pingfang alone. Here is an article on why they were called "marutas". Dr. Harris Sheldon estimates that at least 10,000 to 12,000 prisoners died in the biological experiments.

Frostbite Testing

Yoshimura Hisato, a physiologist in Unit 731, had a special interest in hypothermia and used human subjects to test human's reactions to frostbites. Hisato routinely submerged prisoner's limbs in a tub of water filled with ice and held them there until the limbs were frozen solid and a coat of ice were formed over the skin. He timed the victims to check how long it took for the human bodies to develop frost bites. According to one of the witness to the frostbite testing, the limbs made a sound like a plank of wood when struck with a cane. Then he tried different methods for rapidly thawing of the frozen appendage such as dousing limbs with hot water, open fire, or leaving the subject untreated overnight to see how long it took for the prisoner's blood to thaw it out. Unit 731 was able to prove scientifically that the best treatment for frostbite was to immerse it in water a bit warmer than 100 degrees but never more than 122 degrees.

Warning: Graphic Image

Picture of Frostbite Experimentation

Vivisection of Conscious Prisoners

General Shiro Ishii performing vivisection on a prisoner of Unit 731.

Vivisection is the practice of performing operations on living beings for the purpose of experimentation or scientific research. Vivisection was performed in Unit 731 without anesthesia to study the operations of living systems. It was performed on thousands of victims, mostly Chinese communist prisoners as well as children and elderly farmers. They were infected with diseases such as cholera and the plague, and then had their organs removed for examination before they died in order to study the effects of the disease without decomposition after death.
Subjects that were used to study the progress of gangrene had their limbs amputated and reattached to the other side of the body while others had their limbs crushed or frozen, or had their circulation cut off.
After the body was used up and exhausted, they were normally shot or killed by lethal injection.

Weapon Testing

Unit 731 studied bayonets, swords, and knives with the use of their prisoners. They also studied flamethrowers on both covered and exposed skin. They also set up gas chambers to test subjects with blister agents and nerve gas. They also studied prolonged X-ray exposure, which sterilized and killed thousands of testing subjects.

Testing the Human Limits

There were human subjects locked up and deprived of food and water to learn how long humans could survive. In order to study crash injuries, heavy subjects were dropped onto bounded prisoners. The effects of high G-forces on pilots and falling paratroopers were studied by loading human beings into large centrifuges and spun them at higher and higher speeds until they lost consciousness or died, which usually happened between 10-15 G's.

Venereal Disease

The Imperial Japanese Army was interested in the symptoms and treatment of syphilis. Male prisoners infected with syphilis were ordered to rape female and male prisoners to monitor the onset of the disease. More rapes were arranged until the exposure establish infection.

Rape and Forces Pregnancy

Female prisoners of childbearing age were forcibly impregnated so that weapon and trauma experiments could be done on them. Pregnant test subjects were infected with various diseases, exposed to chemical weapons, crash injuries, bullet wounds, and shrapnel injuries. Then they were opened up and the effects on the fetuses were studied. Pregnant women with syphilis was of special interests to the researchers of Unit 731.

This content is a supplementary resource guide to our ebook.

Unit 731- The Forgotten Asian Auschwitz

The Japanese invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese war has left a strong legacy of hate and disgust among many Chinese today. Much of the atrocities committed by the Japanese are now known to most historians. By far, the most despicable and forgotten act against humanity committed by the Imperial Japanese government was its covert biochemical weapons program. Euphemistically labelled as the "Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department" of the Imperial Japanese Army, the Japanese conducted a wide range of cruel and inhumane experiments on prisoners who were often innocent.

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