Citation

Sabbatani S. Infez. Med. 2014; 22(3): 255-266.

Affiliation

U.O. Malattie Infettive, Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi, Bologna, Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Seconda Universita Departimento Malattie Infettive)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

25269971

Abstract

Starting from the end of the nineteenth century, and during the first four decades of the past century, Japan showed considerable military expansion, on the back of a pan-Asiatic and imperialistic ideology, comparable only to those expressed by Wilhelmian and Nazi Germany. This growth led to Japan playing an extremely important role in the Asia-Pacific continent, which unavoidably brought the country onto a collision course with the British Empire and the United States of America. The Japanese general Shiro Ishii, who had undoubted organisational abilities but also a propensity for crimes against mankind, starting from the end of the 1920s and during the subsequent decade, under the suggestion of a military physician, developed a research programme to obtain biological weapons, since he was aware of the lack of raw materials, technology and scientific background in nuclear weapons. This project was taken forward despite Japan's ratification of the Geneva protocol, undersigned by 70 nations, which posed strict limits to the use of both biological and chemical weapons. In actual fact, the protocol allowed these weapons for defensive purposes, and permitted their experimental development. The research programme, developed with the support of the high command of the Japanese army and certainly known by the Emperor (Tenno) Hirohito, had its operative basis from the year 1932 in the satellite state of Manchukuo, but later and paralleling the increased, aggressive behaviour towards China and the English and American colonies during World War II, spread towards other Asian provinces occupied by the Japanese armies, with other operative units. In these dedicated bases, which were true concentration camps, numerous experiments were carried out on human guinea pigs, frequently concluding with vivisection. Among others, experiments of freezing, thirst, hunger, loss of blood, wounding with firearms, and bone fractures, were performed, as well as the inoculation of microorganisms (including Yersinia pestis, Vibrio cholerae, Richettsia typhi, and Salmonella typhi), and spores of Bacillus anthracis. With regard to infectious diseases, the objective was to establish the most effective models for the use of biological weapons, taking into consideration the features of territories and populations to be placed under attack. It has been estimated that over 100,000 people suffered in such experiments, and according to the authors who studied these facts on the basis of original documentation, approximately 540,000 subjects lost their lives in China and Korea due to epidemics caused by the Japanese between 1937 and 1945.

Language: it