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contrast to the one-sided description of the prosecution, the defense
proposes, first of all, to show the spirit in which Professor Lautenschlaeger
lived, worked, and taught there. It will show that the demands he made on
himself and his assistants were so exacting, particularly with regard to
professional ethics, that the unrelated sections of his total activity which
have been laid before the Court appear in a different light. You will find
that, far from being conducive to clarity, which is so necessary here, the
indictment of this man has created confusion among men of good will.
It
will, therefore, be the first object of the defense to clarify and elucidate
the concepts introduced into the proceedings and to shed light on the alleged
participation.
As for the prosecution's attacks on Professor
Lautenschlaeger's honor as a medical man, we shall first have to define the
term "clinical test." Clinical tests are carried out in accordance with medical
principles established over a number of decades. The medical man performing the
test receives from the manufacturer exact data on all essential qualities of
the new remedy, its application, dosage, and potential secondary effects, as
well as information on the results of experiments on animals, and on its effect
and tolerance as determined by self-experiment. The research laboratory is
responsible for all that data. The testing physician is responsible for the
further application of the drugs, the selection of patients, the modification
of the dosage suggested, etc. We cannot detect anything wrong or any inhuman
act in any systematic test of this nature. If the prosecution chooses to single
out a few of the approximately 50 remedies developed and released between 1940
and 1945 for testing purposes by the Hoechst laboratories, the defense will
show that, in the case of these remedies, as well as of others, Professor
Lautenschlaeger only proceeded in accordance with the highest ethical and
medical principles. In addition, it will be explained that these remedies were
placed at the disposal of Mrugowsky's office, not because concentration-camp
inmates were available there, but because there was a danger of epidemics
breaking out among the units under the jurisdiction of Mrugowsky's office; a
danger calling for the use of these very drugs.
Inasmuch as the
prosecution seeks to depict the tests carried out by the Behringwerke and the
Hoechst Werke as a connected sequence, we must make it clear that they were, in
fact, separate fields of work. Lautenschlaeger, who was in charge of the
Marburg Behringwerke, merely issued general directives from his office at
Hoechst. The leading officials of the Behringwerke were recognized scientists,
working independently; their very |
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