Sorry, but something I stated in my last post was not entirely correct!
I wrote that “I could not find a single study on Schuessler Salts“.
Yet, I do know of a ‘study’ of Schuessler Salts after all; I hesitate to write about it because it is an exceedingly ugly story that goes back to the ‘Third Reich’, and some people do not seem to appreciate me reporting about my research on this period.
The truth, however, is that I already did mention the Schuessler salts before on this blog: “…in 1941 a research unit was established in ‘block 5’ [of the Dachau Concetration Camp] which, according to Rascher’s biographer, Sigfried Baer, contained his department and a homeopathic research unit led by Hanno von Weyherns and Rudolf Brachtel (1909-1988). I found the following relevant comment about von Weyherns: “Zu Jahresbeginn 1941 wurde in der Krankenabteilung eine Versuchsstation eingerichtet, in der 114 registrierte Tuberkulosekranke homöopathisch behandelt wurden. Leitender Arzt war von Weyherns. Er erprobte im Februar biochemische Mittel an Häftlingen.” My translation: At the beginning of 1941, an experimental unit was established in the sick-quarters in which 114 patients with TB were treated homeopathically. The chief physician was von Weyherns. In February, he tested Schuessler Salts [a derivative of homeopathy still popular in Germany today] on prisoners.”
Wikipedia provides further details: [Im Dritten Reich] konnten erstmals mit staatlicher Billigung und Förderung Untersuchungen durchgeführt werden, in denen die behauptete Wirksamkeit „biochemischer“ Arzneimittel überprüft wurde. Solche Versuche fanden auch in den Konzentrationslagern Dachau und Auschwitz statt, unter Leitung des Reichsarztes SS Ernst-Robert Grawitz. Dabei wurden unter anderem künstlich herbeigeführte Fälle von Blutvergiftung und Malaria weitgehend erfolglos behandelt. Für die Häftlinge nahmen diese Experimente in den meisten Fällen einen tödlichen Ausgang.
My translation: During the Third Reich, it became possible for the first time possible to conduct with governmental support investigations into the alleged effectiveness of ‘biochemical’ Schuessler Salts. Such tests were carried out in the concentration camps of Dachau and Auschwitz under the leadership of Reichsarzt SS Ernst-Robert Grawitz. They involved infecting prisoners with sepsis and malaria and treating them – largely without success. Most of the prisoners used for these experiments died.
I also found several further sources on the Internet. They confirm what was stated above and also mention the treatment of TB with Schuessler Salts. Furthermore, they state that the victims were mostly Polish priests:
The last source claims that at least 28 prisoners died as a result of these unspeakably cruel experiments.
The most detailed account (and even there, it is just 2 or 3 pages) about these experiments that I could find is in the superb and extremely well-researched book ‘AUSCHWITZ, DIE NS MEDIZIN UND IHRE OPFER’ by Ernst Klee. In it (p 146), Klee cites Grawitz’s correspondence with Himmler where Grawitz discloses that, prior to the Dachau ‘Schuessler experiments’, there were also some in Auschwitz where all three victims had died. Apparently Grawitz tried to persuade Himmler to stop these futile and (even for his standards) exceedingly cruel tests; the prisoners suffered unimaginable pain before their deaths. However, Himmler reprimanded him sharply and instructed him to continue. Dr Kiesswetter was subsequently recruited to the team because he was considered to be an expert on the clinical use of Schuessler Salts.
[Another book entitled ‘Der Deutsche Zentralverein homöopathischer Ärzte im Nationalsozialismus‘ also mentions these experiments. Its author claims that Weyherns was not a doctor but a Heilpraktiker (all other sources agree that he was a medic). In general, the book seems to down-play this deplorable story and reads like an attempt to white-wash German homeopathy during the Third Reich] .Klee concludes his chapter by reporting the post-war fate of all the doctors involved in the ‘Schuessler experiments’:
Dr Waldemar Wolter was sentenced to death and executed.
Dr Hermann Pape disappeared.
Dr Rudolf Kiesswetter disappeared.
Dr Babor fled to Addis Abeba.
Dr Laue died.
Dr Heinrich Schuetz managed to become a successful consultant in Essen. Only in 1972, he was charged and tried by a German court to 10 years of jail. Several of his colleagues, however, certify that he was too ill to be imprisoned, and Schuetz thus escaped his sentence.
Why do I dwell on this most unpleasant subject?
Surely, this has nothing to do with today’s use of Schuessler Salts!
Do I do it to “smear homeopathy and other forms of complementary medicine with a ‘guilt by association’ argument, associating them with the Nazis“, as Peter Fisher once so stupidly put it?
No!
I have other, more important reasons:
- I do not think that the evidence regarding Schuessler Salts is complete without these details.
- I believe that these are important historical facts.
- I feel that the history of alternative medicine during the Third Reich is under-researched and almost unknown (contrary to that of conventional medicine for which a very large body of published evidence is now available).
- I feel it should be known and ought to be much better documented than it is today.
- I fear that we live in times where the memory of such atrocities might serve as a preventative for a resurgence of fascism in all its forms.
14 Responses to The horrific Schuessler Salt experiments during the Third Reich
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Edzard
Very impressive. You got a total of prisoners who died during trials? And as you write: “I do not think that the evidence regarding Schuessler Salts is complete without these details.”
How does the SCIENTIFIC MEDICAL SYSTEM HANDLE SUCH KILLINGS!
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/trial-error-thousands-left-seriously-5867052
“Thousands of Brits have been left seriously ill or disabled after suffering “adverse reactions” when they agreed to test new medicines.Data released by the UK watchdog under Freedom of Information legislation shows 7,187 people suffered such reactions in the last five years.Of these 493 reactions were immediately life-threatening and 197 resulted in “significant disability or incapacity”, according to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.
The figures come almost a decade after a trial in which six healthy young men suffered devastating reactions, leaving them in intensive care.”
That was Britain.
http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/11550-over-24000-clinical-trial-deaths-and-saes-india-ten-years
“An RTI response received by NGO Swasthya Adhikar Manch, a copy of which is with The Sunday Guardian, reveals that a total of 24,117 cases of deaths and SAEs due to clinical trials occurred between January 2005 and September 2016. The RTI also revealed that out of the 4,534 deaths that have been reported, only 160 cases have received compensations from the pharmaceutical companies.”
That was India.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/x-files-clinical-trials-human-experimental-subjects-372422
“Another 2014 study explored discontinued randomized clinical trials. Here an international team of researchers discovered “discontinuation was common.” Nearly a quarter of all trials ended early, yet little more than a third reported to ethics committees. When they did, the most frequent reason cited for discontinuation was poor recruitment, yet a small percentage (2.4 percent) ended due to “harm,” while the same proportion were aborted for “unknown” reasons.”
You write as if morality exists in medicine: What about the Nazi trials with drugs?
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005168
“The second category of experimentation aimed at developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and occupation personnel encountered in the field. At the German concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Natzweiler, Buchenwald, and Neuengamme, scientists tested immunization compounds and sera for the prevention and treatment of contagious diseases, including malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis. The Ravensbrueck camp was the site of bone-grafting experiments and experiments to test the efficacy of newly developed sulfa (sulfanilamide) drugs. At Natzweiler and Sachsenhausen, prisoners were subjected to phosgene and mustard gas in order to test possible antidotes.”
And off course the outcome of this sick morality:
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/nazi-research
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-ethics-of-using-medical-data-from-nazi-experiments
You should provide complete information.
thank you for yet again demonstrating that you have understood nothing.
…but if one dies under homeopathy, that’s plain natural. Fair point Iqbal. A correct appeal to nature, indeed.
Fair point Edzard about the Schuessler salts but the Nazis experimented with most drugs available at the time.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18848972
…and? does that change anything I have written?
[“I feel that the history of alternative medicine during the Third Reich is under-researched and almost unknown (contrary to that of conventional medicine for which a very large body of published evidence is now available)”]
Edzard
“…and? does that change anything I have written?”
For starters, the slanted topic of your write up “horrific Schuessler Salt experiments”. Schuessler salts are NOT horrific, it was the NAZI mentality.
Alternative medicine would have formed a small fraction of the research work that you show as a big issue,
Why not research Bayers involvement in these trials.
You know the names of of the companies forming part of IG Farben Cartel and their roles in what you write?
And all you found was Schuessler salts. You are sick.
too stupid to merit a reply, I am afraid.
The are not horrific as long as they are not used for any real diseases. Is observing painful death of helpless inmates a Nazi mentality? At least they did not charged their victims for that, unlike present day quacks.
LOOK! LOOK EVERYONE THE NAZIS USED HOMEOPATHY I TOLD YOU IT WAS EVIL DIDNT I?? *calls daily mail*
just the sort of stupid comment I was waiting for!
What exactly is Schuessler Salt? Epsom Salt? Magnesium Sulphate Hydrate MgSO4.7H20? Or was the homeopathic equivalent? How was it administered? By what route and what concentration?
see my previous post
“V for Vendetta” made me uncomfortable enough before I read this. Knowing that the experiments on prisoners is based on historical fact isn’t going to make the next watching any easier.