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Anatomy textbook has Nazi origins

In a letter to JAMA Dr Howard Israel, an oral surgeon at Columbia University, New York, and Dr William Seidelman, the director of an AIDS clinic at the University of Toronto, also state that the author of the textbook was an ardent Nazi (JAMA 1996;276:1633-4).

The two doctors say that Dr Eduard Pernkopf became dean of the University of Vienna Faculty of Medicine after the Anschluss in 1938. A photograph in the New York Times of 26 November 1938 shows him in Nazi uniform standing under a portrait of Hitler while addressing the uniformed faculty from which he purged its Jewish members. Dr Pernkopf's illustrators incorporated small swastikas and SS runes into their signatures in the original edition but these were airbrushed out of the later edition.

Much more sinister is the source of the cadavers portrayed in the more than 800 detailed paintings of dissections in the original work. In their letter the two doctors say, "The precise origins of the cadavers used in Pernkopf's work are unknown, but evidence suggests they may have been the victims of political terror. It is known that the Anatomy Institute of the University of Vienna received the cadavers of prisoners executed at the Vienna district court and of others put to death at Gestapo execution chambers in Linz, Munich, and Prague. Some of these specimens may still exist today."

Drs Israel and Seidelman call for an impartial investigation to determine who the subjects portrayed in the Pernkopf Anatomy were and how they died. If indeed, the subjects had been victims of the Nazis there should be public commemoration of the victims by the institutions and organisations concerned. The Austrian universities seem to have agreed to do this, and the book's publisher, Waverly of Baltimore, has indicated its support for the investigation and has offered to contribute to the cost.

Dr Israel said that he had used the Pernkopf Anatomy since he was a student at Columbia University and that the book contained the best anatomical drawings he had ever seen. One day an older colleague saw him studying and commented that the book had Nazi origins. Dr Israel said, "I became upset, because I had benefited from the book."

Dr David Williams, a professor of medical art at the School of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University, Indiana, said that he went to Austria to study the historical background of the Pernkopf Anatomy and its artists. He presented his findings in 1986 at the international congress for the history of medicine in Dusseldorf, publishing them in 1988.

Dr Williams found that Pernkopf joined the Nazi party in 1933 and the SA [stormtroops] a year later. He later became president of the university. When the war ended Pernkopf spent three years in an allied prisoner of war camp but was not charged with war crimes. He returned, a broken man, in 1948 to the University of Vienna and continued work on his atlas until his death in 1955.

View larger version (132K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Dr Pernkopf was a member of the Nazi party and the stormtroops

Dr Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said that Drs Israel and Seidelman deserved credit for pursuing the ethical issue in the Pernkopf Anatomy and for raising questions about its use. "My view is that we're talking about tainted materials ... if lives hung in the balance, if there were no other option but to go to this source book, then there might be some justification for using it. But as the book is not the only source, despite its high quality, I would say, don't use it." (see also p 1463)--FRED B CHARATAN, medical journalist, florida

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Ernst, E, Thomson, H. J, Nicholson, G., Osborne, K, Pemberton, J., Baron, J H, Hannah, M., Preston, H. (1997). The BMJ's Nuremberg issue. BMJ 314: 439-439 [Full text]