Description:

Shocking handwritten medical study undertaken by a collaborating American physician attached to the U.S. Public Health Service, approx. 120pp. 8vo., [North Africa, probably Morocco], 1942. The lengthy document relates to the intentional infection of local Muslim populations with deadly typhus fever, mainly in Morocco and Algeria. In addition to providing statistics for the spread of typhus, as well as discussing the different vaccines used to prevent the spread of the disease, the book contains numerous examples of human experiments conducted on Moroccan and Algerian colonial subjects by the French administration in concert with the U.S. Health Service which arrived with American invading and occupation forces. The report opens with statistics which show the shocking increase in infections. Foe example, Casablanca saw cases increase from 161 in January, 1942 to 1,284 a year later. The efficacy of earlier vaccination programs is examined. One page, titled “MAISON CARREE VACCINE EXPERIMENT. Alger, 1942”, discusses an experiment on Algerian prisoners. It reads, in part: “...Typhus was introduced in a large shipment of prisoners from Fes. One death occurred in this group during the first 48 hrs. after their arrival in the prison. Complete delousing done only after this death was reported. By that time the new prisoners had been divided among several cells and mixed with groups of the previously typhus-free old prisoners...” American involvement in the experiments is evidenced by an excerpt from the summary of an interview with the Director for Public Health of the Casablanca Region. In part: “This man has made a fine impression on us...He is willing to have a human exp[erimen]t done and will personally help us out...suggested that it would be better to infect the people by means of infected lice than by means of a needle...” Yet another interview with a Dr. Baltazard, conducted March 4, 1943, reads in part: “...He has placed one flea fecalith in the eye of a human and produced typhus fever in that man...” The study also states that "the Native populations consists mainly of Islamized Bubers and Arabs...to some extent mixed with each other and negro stocks...There is a large native Jewish population working in the towns...". Americans are also noted as being involved in experimenting with different vaccines on prisoners in the Civil Prison in Casablanca. Appallingly, the doctors who contributed to the disease's spread in these colonies show apprehension in properly vaccinating African colonists, recommending using "...killed types of vaccine for the Army and all Europeans...would use it for the natives if they could be lined up at will..." The report, while detailing the human experiments conducted in these colonies, also speaks negatively of the ways in which the locals handle the infected, noting in part: “...conical thatched hut with the ill lying on the ground clothed in rags...mortality about 25%...All the sick of necessity, fed themselves, or were fed, with God knows what, by those less sick...Each small area or town is governed by a lesser chief...to hunt out the sick, and then to persuade or forcefully conduct them in...” Other interviews and reports reveal the hideous conditions in overcrowded local hospitals, the names of Americans who had succumbed to typhus, the effects of typhus broken down by religion, the lack of any change in infection rate due to temperature changes, and much more content. A highly important, most controversial document.

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April 1, 2020 10:00 AM EDT
Elkton, MD, US

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