I did this book for a college book review. Though hard to get into at first, the book is very informative and interesting, *if* you are interested in the whole Nazi medicine story.

Directing his book to the academic world, Proctor presented the medical and biomedical communities as the propelling forces behind Hitler's holocaust. After explaining the historical origins and context of Nazism, Proctor provided an illuminating examination of the obscure, complex role of Nazi medical science and "applied biology" in the development of Nazi public health policy and the implementation of Nazi atrocities. Proctor disclosed how the medical profession, motivated by politics and a lust for power and prestige, used science to produce knowledge to be used to the detriment and even the destruction of others. Proctor's comprehensive assessment also revealed international influences (normally erased from American history books!) and scientific "evidence" which contributed to the scientific and political views that helped shape Nazi medical culture, and political and racial policies of the Third Reich. Proctor detailed Nazi programs involving racial purification, sterilization, women's rights, euthanasia, and scientific experimentation as examples of how politics shaped the practice of science. Proctor also detailed the resistance to the onslaught of Nazism by the Association of Socialist Physicians, the most organized form of medical opposition and how German medicine might have evolved had history taken a different path. Proctor concluded with an epilogue on postwar legacies and detailed the events that occurred to those involved in the implementation of the Nazi public policies including the transition of prewar "racial hygiene" into postwar "human genetics". ("amedard" aka "djondjon")

I read this book after Peter Sichrovsky's 'Schuldig Geboren' (Born Guilty) about the offspring of noted Nazis. The connection? A whole lot of the latter were descended from Nazi doctors. Many of them were themselves in or studying medicine, and the claim was made repeatedly of the huge following of the whole medical profession for Naziism. And why not?, the Nazi doctrine itself can be rendered by the phrase 'racial hygiene'! Imagine having a whole political movement willing to empower physicians, give them their heart's delight for social prestige and influence (in funded public health measures) and eliminate a huge fraction of their competitors/rivals (Jewish doctors) to boot? But did you know that the inspiration for a lot of Hitler's measures (from anti-alcohol measures to restricted immigration, to sterilization of 'undesirables') came from the USA? Frightening how close our two systems could be.

Professor Proctor uses many words to talk about prevention, even mentions on page 145 quoting one Thomas Culliney of the USDA Forest Service, listing a number of fruits and vegetables "...are outstanding sources of vitamins A and C--both of which may play a role in reducing human cancers." Yet apparently no mention of Linus Pauling, Ph. D., or Max Gerson, M.D., the earlier researchers who vigorously stressed their importance in treatment and prevention of cancer. (1), (2). While "Genetic Hopes" (Chapter 10) are promoted, he omits any mention of the seminal discoveries of Otto Warburg, M.D., Ph.D., who has been described as "the greatest biochemist of the twentieth century", of cancer cell metabolism, as early as 1923. These discoveries have been discussed in articles in the journal "Science" about 1956 (which was a translated speech Dr. Warburg gave before the German Cancer Control Commission in 1955) and later articles by Dr. Warburg (3). He and his pupil Dean Burk stated "1000 papers" supported their conclusions, yet Proctor makes no reference to him in about 360 references. Max Gerson, M.D., referenced Otto Warburg as authoriity for his treatment (1). In a 1967 statement on "the prime cause of cancer", Dr. Warburg wrote regarding cancer prevention (3):
"To prevent cancer it is therefore proposed first to keep the speed of the bloodstream so high that the venous blood still contains sufficient oxygen; second, to keep high the concentration of haemoglobin in the blood; third, to add always to the food, even of healthy people, the active groups of the respiratory enzymes: and to increase the dose of these groups, if a pre-cancerous state has already developed. If at the same time exogenous carcinogens are rigorously excluded, then much more endogenous cancer might be prevented today." However, there is no mention of Dr. Warburg or this statement by him in this book! Otto Warburg, M.D. won the 1931 Nobel Prize and was nominated for two others, 1926 and 1944. Linus Pauling won the 1954 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and the 1962 Nobel Prize for Peace. The omission of these two giants of science is very puzzling.
(1) "A Cancer Therapy Results of Fifty Cases" by Max Gerson, M.D., The Gerson Institute, 1958, 5th Edition.
(2) "Cancer and Vitamin C", by Ewan Cameron and Linus Pauling, Camino Books, Philadelphia, 1993.
(3) "Otto Warburg Cell Physiologist Biochemist and Eccentric" by Hans Krebs and Roswitha Schmid, Clarendon Press-Oxford (1981).

I ardently wish that everyone- simply everyone- would read this book: it would save a great many lives. The author bulldozes through society's ideological rubbish and presents cancer in a fresh, new light. It is the responsibility of individual persons to uncover the true nature of the medical establishment, to see its goodness as well as its greed and gore, and to plan an escape route from this American epidemic. Prevention is almost everything, but preparation is also critical. This book will assist you in both endeavors. It is a magnificently informative, enjoyable, and eloquent book. Six stars.

American views of the causes of cancer are only partly the result of developing science. Proctor shows how our ideas about this disease were influenced by prominent spokespeople with special interests and by broader social trends. He wisely questions our prevailing policy of cure rather than prevention.

A most interesting subject, not least because of similarities between today's "health nazis" and the real nazis! But for the non-specialist reader (such as myself) there is a little too much mundane detail, and discussion of what paper was published in what year, who wrote it, how often it was cited ...

One nice aspect: Proctor has no time for "cultural relativism" applied to mass murder, and is free of the prolix heavy prose many academics favor.

Robert Proctor presents a great deal of evidence that the nazis' exerted massive control over most facets of ordinary citizen's lives. Yet somehow, he never reaches the obvious conclusion that such compulsive regulations,even if arguably well intentioned,ultimately lead to a large scale sacrifice of basic freedoms.

He explains how the nazis greatly restricted tobacco advertising, banned smoking in most public buildings, increasingly restricted and regulated tobacco farmers growing abilities, and engaged in a sophisticated anti-smoking public relations campaign. (Suing tobacco companies for announced consequences was a stunt that mysteriously eluded Hitler's thugs.) Despite the frightening parallels to the current war on tobacco, Mr. Proctor never even hints at the analogy. Curiously, he seems to take an approach that such alleged concern for public health shows nazism to be a more complex dogma than commonly presumed. While nothing present in the book betokens even a trace of sympathy for the Third Reich, this viewpoint seems incredibly naive. It's easy to wonder if Hitler and company were truly concerned with promoting public health. The unquenchable lust for absolute control is a far more believable motive.

Incongruously some of the book's desultory details lend further certitude to its unpromulgated thesis. Hitler not only abstained from tobacco; he also never drank and was,for the most part--a vegetarian. Frighteningly he also was an animal rights activist. The book reruns a nazi-era cartoon depicting many liberated lab animals giving the nazi salute to Hermann Goring after he outlawed animal experimentation and promised to send violators to a concentration camp. Also included is a fitting quote -now too widely suppressed from Joseph Goebbles, `the fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian; he views Christianity as a symptom of decay." Controversial as it may be in some circles, such a quote proves that nazism viewed Christianity as hatefully as it did Judaism. Passing coverage is given to the Third Reich's forays into euthanasia and eugenics. Another striking morsel is the reporting of a widespread nazi-era whispered joke `What is the ideal German? Blond like Hitler. Slim like Goring. Masculine like Goebbles...' implying that Gautlier Goebble's homosexuality was common knowledge. Nazi linguistic restrictions seem to be the counterpart of modern day `hate speech.' Words such as `catastrophe,' sabotage,' and `assassination' were to be avoided, and in a portentous move, `cripple' was replaced by `handicapped. Proctor also suggests `the word `enlightenment' (was) probably used more in the nazi period than at any other time.'

Perhaps the ultimate overlooked point of this work is the suggestion that Adolph Hitler with his anti-tobacco, anti-religion, pro-animal rights, pro-government intrusion would find success as a modern day liberal.

There's a lot of interesting material in this book: Nazi ideas of the proper diet, indications that the Nazi Institute for Cancer Research may have been a cover for developing bioweapons, and, of course, the chapter that has garnered the most attention: "The Campaign Against Tobacco". Throughout the book Proctor uses the Nazi concern with cancer to show that Nazi science, while often motivated by bizarre or evil notions, wasn't always shoddy. He also shows that it's a mistake to think of Nazi Germany as a totalitarian monolith that always reflected Hitler's will.

For instance, while Hitler wanted to eventually ban smoking, he was ultimately defeated by cultural resistance to the notion and the desire to keep tobacco taxes coming in and tobacco exports leaving. Still, it was Nazi science that first indicated that smoking was harmful though its general emphasis on clinical studies with few patients caused it to be ignored by epidemiologists in other countries. However, the Anglo-American scientists who made their reputations by proving that smoking was a major cause of lung cancer were preceded more than 10 years by Franz H. Muller's dissertation on that link, the first "case-control epidemiologic" study to do so. And he did it in 1939 Germany.

Besides its material on Nazi scientific efforts to diagnose, cure, and prevent cancer, the book also has some very interesting illustrations of Nazi public health propaganda. My favorite illustration, though, is of various animals giving the "Heil" salute to Goering who banned vivisection in 1933.

My one quibble with the book is Proctor's insistence that his book provides no aid and comfort to those, like libertarian Jacob Sullum -- whose book FOR YOUR OWN GOOD: THE ANTI-SMOKING CRUSADE AND THE TYRANNY OF PUBLIC HEALTH is specifically mentioned in the final chapter -- who wish to link anti-smoking efforts with Nazis. I've never heard any anti-smoking activist propose euthanasia programs or putting people in concentration camps. However, the Nazi regime justified its coercive public health measures with the philosophy that your body was state property and "nutrition was not a private matter". And, as in modern America, economic rationales were given for the Nazi laws intended to make life difficult for smokers. Proctor also speculates, in the Prologue, that public health measures like the Nazi war on tobacco could have been one of the appealing tunes in the siren suite of Hitler's fascism. Not everyone became a Nazi to kill Jews. And not all the doctors who signed up with the Nazi Party were quacks. This book does provide some evidence that coercive public health measures that go beyond mere education can spring from a totalitarian impulse.