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The silence of the doctors fifty years after nuremberg

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Abstract

When Seiss-Inquart, Reich Commissar for the Occupied Netherlands Territories, wanted to draw the Dutch physicians into the orbit of activities of the German medical profession, he did not tell them ‘you must send your chronic patients to death factories’ or ‘you must give lethal injections at government request in your offices,’ but he couched his order in most careful and superficially acceptable terms… ‘It is the duty of the doctor, through advice and effort, conscientiously and to his best ability, to assist as helper the person entrusted to his care in the maintenance, improvement and re-establishment of his vitality, physical efficiency and health. The accomplishment of this duty is a public task.’

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Cambridge (Mass.) Hospital and Harvard Medical School, USA

    David U. Himmelstein MD & Steffie Woolhandler MD, MPH

Authors
  1. David U. Himmelstein MD
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  2. Steffie Woolhandler MD, MPH
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Himmelstein, D.U., Woolhandler, S. The silence of the doctors fifty years after nuremberg. J GEN INTERN MED 13, 422–423 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.1998.00125.x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.1998.00125.x

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