NMT01-T674
Volume I · Page 674
about these alleged "experiments" of Dr. Rascher with polygal, although it could certainly not have been and also did not have to be kept secret in the camp if Rascher had actually shot four concentration camp inmates in order to carry out "experiments" on them with polygal.
These facts justify serious doubts as to whether those "experiments" ever took place at all and especially whether they have anything to do with the hemostatic polygal.
In reality, polygal is an absolutely harmless drug. whether it is injected or taken in tablet form, and the use of such a drug in this form can in no case be considered a criminal experiment against humanity as specified by the indictment before this Tribunal. Even when administered by injection with the subsequent drawing of a few drops of blood from the experimental subject, it is completely harmless. It does not cause any more "pain" than any other injection, and the whole test of this drug consists solely of taking one cc. of blood from the vein of the so-called experimental subject. Thus we are not dealing with any experiment of the kind that could be considered criminal because it causes severe pains or because it is dangerous or for any other reasons.
Besides, the concept of "criminal experiments on human beings" has already been explained at the trial of Field Marshal Milch * by the verdict of 16 April 1947; this verdict expressly limits the range of such experiments to experiments "which could cause torture or death to the experimental subjects." Thus one cannot, in the present proceedings, object to those experiments which cannot ordinarily be assumed to cause death to the experimental subject or be accompanied by severe pain. Neither took place when polygal was administered. For either it serves as a hemostatic which can only be of advantage to the patient or, in the reverse case, it simply has no effect. Polygal can never have any harmful consequences, least of all cause any damage to health; nor could this be claimed by the prosecution, for polygal is generally used in surgery nowadays.
And finally, all the persons who submitted to polygal tests were volunteers. Dr. Blome, however, could not prove this here by interrogating the inventor of the drug, Feix, because the prosecution prevented defense counsel from examining Feix by transferring the latter to Dachau, whence he later escaped. The transcript of the interrogation of Feix by the prosecution was not submitted here, even though Feix had told me personally that he could not understand how any blame in connection with polygal could be put on Dr. Blome. But another witness, namely Walter Neff, testified here on the witness stand that the experimental subjects on whom the experiments had been carried out had volunteered, just as he himself had done. Since Neff
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*United states vs. Erhard Milch. See Vol. II.
