Historical Mini Abuse Paper

Section 1: Summarize Historical Event

It was the year 1952, when the late Dr. Kligman from the University of Pennsylvania introduced a vast range of research experiments to over 1,200 inmates at the Holmesburg Prison (Hornblum, 1999). Dr. Albert M. Kligman, a renowned dermatologist and botanist, found this prison to essentially be a haven for the many experiments that would follow throughout the next 20 years. From the years 1952 to 1974, the inmates of Holmesburg Prison were paid to test a plethora of substances, including skin product experiments. Often, Dr. Kligman's skin experimentations included deliberate exposure to skin infections such as staphylococcus bacteria, herpes virus, ringworm, and warts to the Holmesburg Prison inmates (Hornblum, 1999; Richardson, 2001). Dr. Kligman benefited from these experiments by utilizing the results of these studies to advance his own therapeutics, as well as creating a lucrative empire through marketing and selling the agents which had been tested on these inmates. After conducting close to 20 years of experiments, the City of Pennsylvania shut down the Holmesburg Prison experiments in 1974, citing the experiments to have placed the inmates of the prison in direct harm.

Section 2: Evaluate

The human subjects participating in the Holmesburg Prison experiments were often left unaware of the study they would be participating in, unaware of the harm of these studies, as well as unaware that several of these studies were known to cause detrimental side effects in human subjects (Hornblum, 1998; Richardson, 2001). Therefore, the Holmesburg Prison experiments were in direct violation of the Hippocratic Oath, declaring that the healthcare professional responsible for the health of an individual shall “first do no harm.” The oath also requires: “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.” Each statement places the Holmesburg Prison experiments, and Dr. Kligman in...