josef mengele

[Mattk]

just watched a prog on mengele on the history channel and wondered if in some hideous,perverse way his experiments actually benefitted mankind longterm.

does anyone know ?

[Aschenbach]

Most of his known experiments had dubious if any scientific value. Doubtless there was some advancement in 1940s NAZI war-technology (gas, poison, bombs etc), but it's the antithesis of a long-term benefit to mankind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation

[jake-the-peg]

I don't know whether this is true but when I was teaching Scuba diving I was told that the data for human survival times in cold water was originally derived from these experiments.

Some of the work in this area was apparently done by John Haywood at the University of Vancouver and there is a belief that he used some of Mengele's data.

Whether or not there was any real benefit in this or how true it is I don't know. If you do a Google search for John Haywood and Mengele you'll probably find some interesting reading.  

[pixi]

I think i read somewhere that because of nazi wartime experiements a hell of a lot was learned about decompression chambers and deep sea divers getting the bends (right word?)  Such a pity that these clever people couldn't experiment in a humane way.

[jake-the-peg]

I'd not heard of any work on decompression being done there but I guess it's possible

The decompression tables in current use are actually mostly based on research done on volunteers in the US Navy.

This is one of the main criticisms of them that they are slanted towards young fit males and not towards the average sport diver who is probably in his early middle age and likes a drink or too. 

[mystress]

Mattk,

I am sure Lampshades made from Human Skin will be all the rage at IKEA this season (this was a favourite part of Mengele's research too).