Page 53 - Marutas of Unit 731

Chapter 6

Vivisection

Ethics did not exist in Ishii’s Network. Ever ything was done e ciently in the
name of science. Vivisection was conducted on human beings to better

obser ve rst-hand how diseases affected each organ once a human dies; the

putrefactive bacteria could set in and destroy the result of a good

experiment. Even though the logs held in Unit 731’s inner prison were in

shackles, their health and nutrients were monitored since good health could
guarantee the best scienti c results for their exper iments. An Ishii

technician described what the maruta were ser ved. “Only at noon was there

a small amount of soybean mixed in… Full consideration was given to the

nutrient value of supplements, and pork was ser ved in a different menu
[27]
almost ever y day.”
Ever y laborator y at Pingfan had a large bullet in board with technicians

recording data such as “Speci c date; 3 maruta, numbers so and so, were

given injections of so-and-so, x cc; we need x number of hearts or x number
[28]
of livers, etc.” In a testimony given on December 28 by witness Furuichi

during the Khabarovsk Trial, he described how “a Russian woman was
infected with syphilis to allow the scientists to nd out how to prevent the

[29]
spread of the disease. Many babies were born to women who had been
captured and become experimental subjects. Some women were kidnapped

while pregnant; others became pregnant aer forced sex acts in the prisons,
[30]
enabling researchers to study the transmission of venereal disease.