New Bio of Sabina Spielrein: Raped by Carl Jung, Then Murdered by The Nazis - Tablet Magazine PDF

New Bio of Sabina Spielrein: Raped By Carl Jung, Then Murdered by the Nazis – Tablet Magazine 26/02/2018, 16)20
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Ten
Ten: An
entirely
subjective list,
presented in no
particular
order, of our 10
favorite articles
from Tablet’s
Arts & Culture
and News &
Politics
sections in
2017.
“Favorite” here
means
somewhere at
the nexus of
these pieces’
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and the
measurable
ways that
readers
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when they
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/248785/sabina-spielrein-carl-jung Page 1 of 62
came out, they

bear re-
reading. If you
missed them,
you’re in for a
treat. Today,
two luminaries,
reassessed:
Sabine
Spielrein and
John Singer
Sargent’s
portrait of Lady
Adele Meyer.
***
In August
2012, in
Rostov-on-
Don, Russia, a
protest took
place critiquing
a plaque that
memorialized
the 27,000
“citizens” who
were
systematically
shot in a two-
day massacre
by the Nazis
during World
War II. Russian
officials had
removed the
original plaque,
which had
honored the
mostly Jewish
victims, and
replaced it with
a revisionist
plaque
honoring only
“citizens.” The
precious
Jewish souls,
the doctors,
lawyers, poets,
scientists,
librarians; all
the parents,
children, and
grandparents,
murdered
specifically on
account of their
ancestry—were
gone, literally
overnight.
Among them
was Dr. Sabina
Spielrein, the
pioneer
psychoanalyst,
a member of
the Vienna
Psychoanalytic
Society, the
first child
psychoanalyst
in the world,
(yes, even
before Anna
Freud), and the
founder of
Moscow’s
Psychoanalytic
Clinic.
Spielrein’s
murder, and
the enforced
anonymity of
her fate, were
called to my
attention by
Angela Sells, in
her new and
impressive
book: Sabina
Spielrein: The
Woman and
the Myth. Sells
quotes Rabbi
Shimon
Samuels, who
“termed this
removal of
Jewish heritage
(in Rostov-on-
Don) a
memoricide.
Stripping the
plaque, and by
extension, its
occupants, of
Jewish roots,
seems a
deliberate
attempt to
suppress the
historical
horror that
occurred at the
site in order to
avoid the
discomfort of
others.” What
the Russian
government
did by
removing the
plaque,
arguably to
avoid “ethnic
tensions” was,
in a way, Sells
argues, also
done to
Spielrein’s
work, first by
her
psychoanalytic
colleagues and
then by their
followers down
to the present
day.
Like Spielrein,
her subject and
fore-mother,
Sells’
scholarship is
stunningly
diverse. She
draws upon
poetry,
literature,
mythology,
psychoanalytic
theory, opera,
politics,
history, as well
as on
Spielrein’s
diaries, letters,
and articles,
often
untranslated or
still buried in
private
collections and
archives. Sells’
analysis
touches upon
the nature of
anti-Semitism
—the particular
way in which
Jews, both
women and
men, were
viewed by
Christians,
both
theologically
and in
psychoanalytic
circles in 20th-
century
Europe. Sells
also draws
upon
postmodern
feminist
literature
which has only
recently
explored the
themes about
which Spielrein
was prescient.
Spielrein’s
story is a case
history of
pathological
patriarchy,
anti-Semitism,
Stalinism,
Nazism, and
genocide. It is
also the story of
an incredible
pioneering
thinker whose
ideas were
freely
“borrowed” by
the Great Men
of
Psychoanalysis
whose
followers
conspired in
defaming and
demonizing
Spielrein’s
character and
all traces of her
subsequent 30-
year history of
intellectual and
clinical work.
To the extent to
which
Spielrein’s
work was also
feminist and
female-
centered, (or
female-
embodied), it
constituted the
forced
disappearance
of feminist
knowledge
which, as
Australian
scholar Dale
Spender has so
ably shown, has
happened
generation
after
generation,
century after
century. As a
result, each
feminist wave
must continue
reinventing the
wheel of
knowledge; few
have broad
shoulders upon
which to stand.
To cite a
personal
example: In
1970, I
demanded “$1
million in
reparations on
behalf of
women who
had been
misdiagnosed
and
mistreated” at
the annual
meeting of the
American
Psychological
Association.
Nervous
laughter
followed, after
which the
muttering rose
to a minor roar,
I intuited:
“This
woman”—that
would be me
—“is suffering
from a case of
penis envy.”
Yet Spielrein, a
psychoanalytic
pioneer whose
name, work,
and history I’d
known nothing
about—none of
my many
learned
professors or
psychoanalytic
supervisors had
ever mentioned
her name—had
attacked this
concept more
than half a
century before
my speech.
At the time, in
1970, I laughed
in disbelief at
the
accusation/diagnosis
from the
audience—and
began writing
Women and
Madness on the
plane home
from Miami. It
would become
a best seller. It
even had a
chapter that
was hailed by
other feminists
as a
“pioneering”
exposé of sex
between
patient and
therapist. Yet I
had no idea
that Spielrein’s
analyst, Carl
Gustav Jung,
had deflowered
her when she
was one of his
hospitalized
patients and
most needed
his help.
This “affair”—
this crime—was
wrongfully
immortalized
on screen in
David
Cronenberg’s
2011 film A
Dangerous
Method. Keira
Knightley plays
Spielrein,
Michael
Fassbender
plays Jung, and
Viggo
Mortensen
plays Freud.
The film does
not convey the
fact that
Spielrein is a
lot more than a
“crazy” patient,
nor do a
number of
plays about
her, nor do ever
so many
learned
treatises that
all reduce the
then-19-year-
old to a
permanent 19-
year-old—or, as
Sells phrases it,
to an “ever-
patient,” an
“uber” patient,
one who is
continually and
retroactively
diagnosed,
demonized,
and diminished
as
“schizophrenic.”
According to
Sells—and I
agree with her
analysis—in
addition to her
sister’s death,
Spielrein was
most probably
a victim of
childhood
sexual abuse at
her father’s
hands. In Sells’
view, Sabina
was
hospitalized
because of this
abuse.
According to
Sells (and
Spielrein), her
breakdown was
a“reaction to
her father’s
abuse which
began at age 4.”
“In a 1909
letter to her
mother
[Spelrein
writes]: ‘I fell in
love with a
psychopath
[Jung], and is it
necessary to
explain why? I
have never
seen my father
as normal.’
Spielrein
further says to
her mother that
she and Jung
‘acted’ at times
as caretakers
for each other
and that Jung’s
behavior of
raging,
weeping, and
jubilant
prostration
mimicked her
own experience
of her parents:
‘Remember
how dear
daddy was
apologizing to
you exactly in
the same
manner!’ Her
equation of
Jung to her
father perhaps
belies a subtle
allusion to her
experience of
the affair as a
form of
continued
abuse.”
According to
Sells, in a
private
interview,
Spielrein
described what
Jung, her
treating
physician, did
to her as
“rape.” In 1910,
Spielrein
writes: “Good
God, if only he
[Jung] had an
inkling of how
much I have
suffered on his
account and
still suffer! … I
am ashamed
that I have
wasted so
much time.
Courage.
Ah, yes—
courage.”
***
In 1972, I
published
Women and
Madness. It
had one
chapter about
sex between
patient and
therapist. Both
clinicians and
reviewers
challenged the
information I
presented:
“These women
are making it
up. They are
mentally ill.
How can you
believe them?”
And: “If
anything
happened they
themselves
wanted it to
happen, they
seduced their
therapists and
now when
things have not
turned out
their way, they
are crying
‘Foul.’ ”
This is exactly
what clinicians
used to say
when female
patients alleged
incest; exactly
what everyone
used to say
when women
alleged rape or
sexual
harassment.
Although I had
done interviews
and tried to
research this
subject, I am
struck by how
little I really
knew about the
history of this
sordid subject
among
psychoanalysts
and their
patients.
I did not know

how hard
Spielrein
fought against
concepts such
as penis envy
back in 1912
and that she —
not Jung, not
Freud — was
the one who
first proposed
the existence of
mythic
archetypes in
the human
unconscious
and the
existence of a
death wish
which, as she
understood it,
was about
death and
rebirth.
Spielrein also
began to chart
the
psychological
relationship
between
mothers and
daughters, the
nature of
female
sexuality, and
the origin of
human speech.
Imagine if such
work had never
been
disappeared.
Imagine if
Spielrein’s brief
stint as a
patient had not
been used
forever after to
denigrate her
as a “crazy”
woman who fell
in love with her
psychoanalyst
and “forced”
him to cure her
via a dangerous
method known
as the “love
cure.”
Sounds shady,
doesn’t it?
There she was,
a 19-year-old
probable incest
victim, (who
was therefore
often
retroactively
diagnosed as a
“borderline
personality” or
as
“schizophrenic”),
who had
experienced a
“breakdown” of
some kind in
response to
years of
childhood
abuse coupled
with the recent
death of her
younger sister
—and there he
was, at the
famed
Burgholzli
Clinic, the
Aryan God-in-
formation, who
abused his
power over
Sabina when
she was at her
most
vulnerable.
(Granted, Jung
himself was
only 27 at the
time but the
power
difference
between them
was real and
significant.)
Jung’s was a
criminal and
extremely
unethical act;
perhaps it was
the act of a
selfish
sociopath, who
took advantage
of what
psychoanalysts
have termed
“transference.”
Who but a
sociopath
would propose
an openly
polygamous
union and
living
arrangement
that would
include his
wife? Sabina
wisely, sanely,
turned him
down.
However, this
in-patient’s
(mis)treatment
ended in eight
months.
Sells stresses
that Spielrein
was
pronounced
“cured,” by
none other
than Eugen
Bleuler.
Although her
on-and-off-
again
relationship
with Jung
continued for
some time,
both on an
outpatient
basis and then
as a doctoral
student,
Spielrein put
this “love
cure”/affair/victimization
entirely behind
her and went
on to obtain a
doctorate in
psychiatry. Her
dissertation
adviser was
Jung, of course.
Apparently,
Jung had a
“thing” for
Jewish girls. In
1910, Spielrein
writes in her
diary that “he
[Jung] would
love a black-
complexioned
Jewish girl,”
and that as
much as he
wished to
remain “close
to his religion
and culture,”
he desired
“liberation
from his
paternal
responsibilities
in an
unbelieving
Jewess.”
As Spielrein
suspected and
as Jung
admitted to
Freud, “The
Jewess [has]
popped up in
another form,
in the shape of
my patient
[Spielrein].”
According to
Sells, Jung had
had a previous
relationship
with another
Jewish woman.
Spielrein
intuited that
she may be
Jung’s “psycho-
sexual
replacement.”
Taking his
eroticized anti-
Semitism to a
whole new
level, Jung
confronts
Spielrein about
why the Jews
are
marginalized:
“… (the Jew) is
the murderer of
his own
prophets, even
of his Messiah.”
Here’s how
Spielrein
responds: “…
You accuse us
Jews, along
with Freud, of
viewing our
deepest
spiritual life as
infantile wish
fulfillment. To
this, I must
reply that there
is hardly a
nation so
inclined to see
mysticism and
the promise of
fate (faith?) in
the world as
the Jewish
people.”
Freud relayed
to Spielrein:
“We are and
remain Jews.
The others will
only exploit us
and will never
understand or
appreciate us.”
***
Jung’s
contemporaries
refused to
blame him,
although Freud
did. As recently
as 2010, John
Haule excused
Jung’s
transgression
by invoking
John Kerr to
normalize it:
“Jung was
scarcely the
only person to
become
involved with a
patient. Gross’
exploits were
legendary,
Stekel had long
enjoyed a
reputation as a
‘seducer.’ Jones
was paying
blackmail
money to a
former patient,
while noted
colleague Otto
Rank famously
began an affair
with his
patient, Anaïs
Nin.” Sells cites
my own work
on this issue to
bolster her
argument and I
am grateful to
her.
Yet Spielrein’s
importance is
hardly that of a
patient, or an
“Ever Patient.”
She is a
psychoanalytic
pioneer, whose
original ideas
were
“borrowed” by
Jung and
Freud, both
with and
without credit;
and whose
original ideas
about female
sexuality,
death-and-
rebirth, child
psychology,
and the
importance of
the mother-
daughter
relationship
were utterly
forgotten. As
Sells ably
demonstrates,
Spielrein
shifted rapidly
away from
Jung as a “love
interest” as she
began to worry
about the
possibility that
he will “steal
ideas from the
research he has
been reading.”
Her fears were
well-founded.
Spielrein
writes:
I must admit
that I greatly
fear that my
friend
[Jung], who
planned to
mention my
idea (of
archetypes in
our collective
unconscious,
about death-
rebirth) in
his article in
July, saying
that I have
rights of
priority, may
simply
borrow the
whole
development
of the idea,
because he
now wants to
refer to it as
early as
January. …
How could I
esteem a
person who
stole my
ideas, who
was not my
friend but a
petty,
scheming
rival? … I
love him and
I hate him.
Freud was
careful to credit
Spielrein for
her idea about
the death
instinct.
Amazingly, the
subsequent
editors of
Freud’s works
then
systematically
dropped
Freud’s own
crediting of
Spielrein. And,
in 1912, when
members of the
Vienna
Psychoanalytic
Society (VPS)
discussed this
idea, they had
to be reminded
by Spielrein,
who was
present and a
member, “that
this was an idea
of hers ‘now in
print,’ asserting
intellectual
ownership on
the concept
that she
previously
brought to the
VPS in 1911.”
Spielrein dared
to disagree
with Freud and
early on,
introduced the
concept of
“female
psychology as
existing outside
of an unrelated
to penis envy.”
He said, “No.”
And the
discussion
apparently
moved on.
In her lifetime,
Spielrein was
forced to
endure groups
of hostile and
powerful men
in both Vienna
and Moscow,
who were
offended,
mortified, by
her ideas about
female
polymorphous
eroticism,
childhood
sexuality, and
penis envy. As
Sells writes:
“As the only
woman in the
room, Spielrein
put forth
images and
ideas of an
embodied
eroticism at a
time when
women’s
sexuality was
labeled [by
Freud] the
‘dark continent’
of psychology,
and female
orgasms were
categorized
into two
groups: clitoral,
or ‘infantile,’
and vaginal, or
‘mature.’ The
clitoris itself
was equated
with an
‘amputated
penis,’ its
stimulation
considered a
form of penis
envy, and lest a
woman achieve
satisfaction
through
‘penetration,’
she was often
diagnosed with
a case of
frigidity or
hysteria.
Contrarily,
right or wrong,
Spielrein here
attempts to
give voice to
the ‘special’
nature of
women’s
arousal without
degrading its
manifestation
or filtering it
through a
range of
neuroses.”
Spielrein could
not earn a
living in
Vienna, Zurich,
or Geneva
because she
was a woman.
In 1923, she
was forced to
return to
Moscow where
Stalin allowed
her to found
the first
Psychoanalytic
Clinic; she
flourished
there until the
late 1920s
when Stalin
shut her down
because
psychoanalytic
ideas were “too
Jewish.”
Spielrein left
Moscow and
returned to her
hometown
where she
continued
seeing patients
quietly. (It was
dangerous to
do so and the
Moscow
Psychoanalytic
Society had
already
disbanded).
Inevitably, she
became
impoverished.
In rapid-fire
order, she lost
her three
brothers whom
Stalin had
executed in the
Gulag, then her
husband, and
finally her
parents.
Without access
to the kind of
colleagues,
admirers, or
students who’d
rescued Freud
at the last
moment (he’d
refused to leave
Vienna), or
who’d rescued
major
Orthodox
Torah scholars
—Spielrein was
trapped, with
neither family
nor powerful
friends abroad.
In 1942, the
Nazis
murdered her
and her two
daughters,
together with
27,000 other
Jews in a two-
day massacre
in Rostov-on-
Don.
Unbelievably,
according to
Sells, (and she
documents
this), because
Spielrein wrote
about the
Death Instinct
(which she
viewed as a
theme of death
and rebirth),
some
psychoanalytic
scholars have
even tried to
blame her for
her murder at
Nazi hands!
She wanted it,
she invited it,
she refused to
flee from it …
yes, 6 million
Jews all wanted
to be murdered
—and Spielrein
is also the
Jewish
Seductress who
tempted and
seduced Jung.
It is unbearable
that Spielrein’s
work was taken
and used
without
crediting her;
that her
character was
defamed by the
Great Men who
used her ideas
without
crediting her;
and that she
was unable to
earn a living in
Austria and in
Switzerland
because she
was a woman;
unable to
continue her
groundbreaking
work in
Moscow
because she
was a Jew; and
was, eventually,
in 1942,
murdered by
the Nazis.
In a heroic act
of resistance
against
“memoricide,”
Sells has begun
Spielrein’s
long-overdue
resurrection.
Angela Sells’
book is a
major, perhaps
a definitive,
feminist
contribution to
the literature.
Someone
should make a
movie about
the real Sabina
Spielrein.
***
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morning.
Phyllis Chesler is
the author of 17
books including
the landmark
feminist classics
Women and
Madness (1972),
Woman’s
Inhumanity to
Woman (2002),
and An American
Bride in Kabul
(2013), which
won a National
Jewish Book
Award, and
Islamic Gender
Apartheid:
Exposing a Veiled
War Against
Women (2017).
Her forthcoming
work is titled A
Politically
Incorrect
Feminist. She is a
Fellow at The
Middle East
Forum and is one
of the Original
Women of the
Wall.
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CARL
JUNG
PSYCHOANALYSIS
SABRINA
SPEILREIN
SIGMUND
FREUD
TABLET
TOP TEN
VIENNA
WORLD
WAR II
Holmesburg
Prison.(Photo:
Wikipedia)
It was while
Peter Buxtun
was working as
a venereal-
disease
investigator for
the Public
Health Service
in San
Francisco in
1966 that he
overheard a
lunchtime
conversation
that would not
only confound
him but
ultimately
place him
among the
most important
whistleblowers
in American
history.
A graduate of
the University
of Oregon and
psychiatric
medic in the
army, Buxtun
had taken a job
as an
investigator/interviewer
tracking down
the sex
partners of
those
individuals
determined to
have
contracted
gonorrhea and
syphilis.
Returning to
the coffee room
of the clinic at
33 Hunt St.
after lunch one
day, he heard a
senior officer
tell two nurses
of a strange
story
concerning a
severely ill man
in Alabama
who had been
taken by his
family to a
private
physician for
treatment. The
doctor
recognized the
symptoms as
tertiary syphilis
and gave the
man a shot of
penicillin. After
the visit,
however, local
PHS officials
came down
hard on the
physician. They
informed him
the man was
part of a special
clinical
investigation
and should not
have been
treated.
“I couldn’t
believe what I
was hearing,”
recalled
Buxtun. “It ran
counter to
everything I
had learned as
a venereal-
disease worker.
It’s not what
our mission
was.”
Perplexed that
a legitimate
clinical trial
could preclude
treatment to a
sick, insane
individual,
Buxtun
followed up
with his own
investigation
and requested
whatever
material was
available on
this unusual
nontreatment
study in Macon
County,
Alabama. The
package
Buxtun
received was
shocking.
Though
hundreds of
men had
syphilis—they
were told they
had “bad
blood”—all they
were given was
aspirin and
tonic. Also
included in the
package were
accounts of
“roundups,” or
the periodic
collection and
examination of
the 400
syphilitic men
in the study.
PHS doctors
were interested
in charting the
progress of the
disease until
the study’s final
stage, autopsy.
Buxtun was
stunned by
what he read,
especially that
all the subjects
in the exercise
were poor black
sharecroppers.
Buxtun then
went to the
public library
to look for
everything he
could on Nazi
experimentation
during the war,
the subsequent
trial of German
doctors, and
the crafting of
the Nuremberg
Code of ethics
whose first
principle
stated, “The
voluntary
consent of the
human subject
is absolutely
essential.” His
intention of
sending his
assessment of
the Tuskegee
Study to his
superiors was
not met with
support by co-
workers.
People, he was
advised, lost
their jobs for a
lot less.
During the next

few years
Buxtun did
battle with his
CDC superiors
over the
Tuskegee Study
—on one
occasion he
was summoned
to Atlanta for a
“Look here,
young man”
lecture—but
the study
continued
unabated.
Though
repeatedly
thwarted,
Buxtun, the son
of a Jewish
Czech father
and Catholic
Austrian
mother, was
made of sterner
stuff than the
few others who
had qualms
about the
study. Even
after leaving
the PHS for law
school, Buxtun
brought the
issue to the
attention of
anyone who
would listen.
Finally, in
1972, Edith
Lederer, a
young reporter
with the
Associated
Press, listened
with alarm to
Buxtun’s story.
She requested
his
documentation
and passed it
on to her
superiors. In
June,
newspaper
headlines
across the
country would
scream
“Syphilis
Victims in U.S.
Study Went
Untreated for
40 Years,” and
the nation
began to re-
evaluate its
practice of
using
vulnerable,
institutionalized
populations as
raw material
for medical
research.
***
It was
just before that
searing
revelation that
I, too, became
familiar with
the use of the
powerless as
test subjects.
After earning a
master’s degree
in history from
Villanova in
1971 and just
23 years old, I
began working
in the
Philadelphia
prison system.
That first day
was an eye-
opener. In
addition to the
cacophonous
screams and
belligerent
shouts of
hundreds of
angry inmates
wandering
about the
corridors and
cell blocks, was
the surprising
sight of dozens
of grim-faced,
Black Muslims
(members of
the Nation of
Islam)
marching to
the chow hall
and the
exercise yard
under the
command of
their own
religious
officials. Even
more chilling
was the
spectacle of
scores of
wounded
prisoners;
inmates
wrapped in
gauze pads,
adhesive tape,
and surgical
dressing.
With many
inmates
appearing to
have survived a
violent gang
war in the
prison yard or
some cell-block
catastrophe, I
couldn’t help
but wonder if
my decision to
launch a
literacy
program in the
Philadelphia
Detention
Center was not
only imprudent
but downright
dangerous. The
next morning, I
asked a guard
on A Block why
so many men
required
bandages and
medical
dressing? What
had caused
such mass
carnage? “Oh,
that’s nothing,”
replied Officer
Reaves with a
chuckle. “That’s
just the
perfume
experiments for
the University
of
Pennsylvania.”
I’m skeptical by
nature, so the
answer baffled
me. Imagining
hundreds of
heavily
perspiring,
foul-smelling
prisoners
wearing
Chanel, Estee
Lauder, and
Arpege by
Lanvin for an
Ivy League
university fell
somewhere
between
incomprehensible
and ridiculous.
After replying,
“Are you
kidding me?” I
quickly
followed with a
series of
questions
running the
gamut from
“What types of
perfumes?” and
“Why the need
for bandages?”
to “How long
do the
experiments
last?” “Do the
inmates
volunteer or
are they forced
to participate?”
and “Are there
any negative
repercussions
from the tests?”
The officer
patiently
answered my
questions, but
after 20
minutes grew
irritated and
sternly
informed me,
“Look, Mr.
Hornblum, you
and I wouldn’t
do it. No tellin’
what these
doctors are
injecting and
rubbing on
these guys. But
these inmates
are crazy.
They’re
desperate,
they’ll do
anything to
make some
money. This is
the only way
they can do it
in jail, by
becoming a
guinea pig.”
I was
admittedly
preoccupied
with the
unexpected
discovery that
an urban jail
had been
transformed
into a clinical
research
center, but my
attempt to
learn more was
hindered by a
culture of
acceptance
reinforced by
strict
paramilitary
discipline. The
inmate test
subjects were
willing to
answer my
questions but
had no idea
what they were
testing or being
exposed to.
Institutional
staff were tight-
lipped. As
Officer Reaves
had warned
me, “You’re
new here, Mr.
Hornblum, not
the tests. These
experiments
been goin’ on
for 20 years.
You just better
get used to it
and stop askin’
questions, or
you’ll be outta
here.”
The creation of
an
entrepreneurially-
oriented
dermatologist
named Albert
Kligman, the
prison system’s
human
research mill
was well-
entrenched and
not open for
discussion.
Everyone who
worked at the
prison—from
administrators
and
correctional
officers to
social workers
and medical
staff—seemed
comfortable
with the testing
program and
with its use of
human beings
as research
animals. Even
the better-
educated
employees of
the institution,
the social
workers,
occasionally
counseled
inmates to get
on the tests if
they were in
need of money.
I, however,
remained
puzzled by
everyone’s
unquestioning
acceptance of a
vast human-
research
endeavor that
depended on
imprisoned
minorities for
its success.
Why, I
repeatedly
asked myself
and others, was
everyone who
worked in the
jail so
accepting of
several
thousand
incarcerated
individuals
over many
years—the vast
majority of
them
unschooled
African-
Americans—
being used as
raw material
for research by
a few men in
white lab coats
with M.D. or
Ph.D. after
their names?
The answer
repeatedly
given was,
don’t rock the
boat—the fewer
questions, the
better. Even my
superior at the
Board of
Education
instructed me:
“Allen, don’t
bring up these
inmate
experiments
anymore. The
prison system
will not only
throw you out
but the
educational
program as
well.”
Though I
reluctantly did
as ordered,
daily exposure
to mass testing
did not temper
my skepticism
or curiosity. It
was clear more
than perfumes
were being
studied—
rumors had all
sorts of drugs,
chemicals, and
procedures
being
investigated,
including tests
orchestrated by
the U.S. Army.
Inmate
complaints of
injury were
widespread,
physical
trauma was
obvious, and
some
participating in
military
psychotropic-
drug studies
walked around
the jail like
zombies. But
opposition to
the research
was
nonexistent.
In early 1974,
Kligman’s
research
program
vanished;
escorted out
the door in the
wake of the
tsunami of bad
publicity
caused by
Buxtun’s
Tuskegee Study
revelations.
Medical
research
programs
across the
nation using
institutionalized
populations
were now
considered not
only unethical
but immoral
and dangerous.
Research
programs were
shuttered.
It would be two
decades later,
and while
working in the
Philadelphia
Sheriff’s Office,
that I decided
to revisit the
prison-research
issue. Haunted
by the memory
of mass
experimentation
on a captive
population, and
dismayed the
intervening
years had not
witnessed a
journalist,
historian, or
medical ethicist
tackle what I
suspected was
a
penal/medical
hustle of grand
proportions, I
began tracking
down former
inmates,
doctors, and
documents.
The five-year-
long quest
resulted in the
1998
publication of
my book Acres
of Skin and a
clearer
understanding
of how the
prison system
of a major
metropolis had
evolved into a
large, long-
term human-
research
facility.
***
Dr. Albert M.
Kligman began
his “research”
in the early
1950s to foster
the training of
young
dermatology
residents. But
he quickly
found the
human flotsam
and jetsam
incarcerated in
the city’s
prisons too
valuable a
commodity to
go unused. “I
felt like a
farmer seeing a
fertile field for
the first time,”
Kligman
readily
admitted after
observing the
imprisoned
population.
Within a short
time, Kligman,
with the
support of the
dermatology
department of
the University
of Pennsylvania
School of
Medicine, had
moved from
rudimentary
studies to more
sophisticated
(and
dangerous)
investigations
such as a 1958
study (that)
inoculated
scores of
prisoners with
such
ectodermotropic
viruses as wart
virus, vaccinia,
herpes simplex,
and herpes
zoster. The
subjects of
these
experiments
were healthy
“colored” male
volunteers, 20
to 45 years of
age who
volunteered to
be inoculated
several times.
In the wart
virus section of
the study, 47
inoculations
were
performed in
seven
volunteers in
different skin
areas (forearm,
palm, face,
scalp, and
penis). All of
the recipients
developed at
least one
lesion, some of
them two
lesions at
different
locations.
In addition to
the greater
variety of
experiments
was a
heightened
threat of injury.
For example,
Kligman
developed an
interest in
nuclear
medicine in the
mid-1960s and
sought the use
of radioactive
isotopes for his
clinical
investigations.
He had no
personal
knowledge of
or training with
such dangerous
material, and
he needed such
a person to
acquire it from
the
government.
His application
with the
Atomic Energy
Commission
(AEC) for the
license and use
of radioactive
material was
signed by Dr.
Benjamin
Calesnick, a
professor of
human
pharmacology
at Hahnemann
Medical
College.
When I
confronted him
about his
involvement
with Kligman’s
prison
research,
Calesnick grew
indignant and
insisted: “I did
not operate
radioactive
material testing
at Holmesburg.
The whole
thing was a
fraud.”
Calesnick
would go on to
express his
frustration and
outrage that he
had been
drawn into
Kligman’s
deceptive
gambit with the
biting
comment that
Kligman had a
“reputation as
an operator.”
He knew “how
to make money
out of
medicine.” It
turned out that
Dr. Calesnick,
the authorized
and trained
nuclear-
medicine
specialist,
never set foot
in a
Philadelphia
prison and was
totally in the
dark as to what
Kligman was
doing with the
isotopes. The
AEC was never
sure what
Kligman was
up to, either. As
for the test
subjects, they
were never
informed they
were being
injected with
radioactive
material.
Similarly, in
1964 when
Dow Chemical
came calling
with a protocol
that exposed
inmates to
dioxin (a highly
toxic and
dangerous
carcinogenic
substance),
Kligman’s only
concern was his
fee. The
application of
dioxin on the
faces and backs
of dozens of
prisoners—the
vast majority
African-
American—
may remain the
only instance of
the scientific
community
purposefully
applying the
substance on
humans. When
I asked Verald
Keith Rowe,
the Dow
coordinator of
the project, if
he had any
concerns about
African-
Americans
being the bulk
of the test
population (of
the first 56
inmates to be
exposed to
dioxin, 47 were
black), he
replied, “I don’t
have too much
of a problem
with Kligman’s
operation in
that regard.”
The inmates
who were
receiving a
dollar a day for
renting out a
piece of their
skin were never
told the name
of the
substance or its
cancer-causing
potential.
Kligman
received
$10,000 for his
services.
As the years
passed,
Kligman’s large
stable of test
subjects
became well
known to those
in the field of
human
experimentation.
By the mid-
1960s the U.S.
Army Chemical
Corps had also
entered the
Philadelphia
Prison System
in search of
psychoactive
substances that
would create
the
Manchurian
candidate as
well as
neutralize an
enemy on the
battlefield.
Military
psychopharmacologists
from
Edgewood
Arsenal,
Maryland,
routinely
traveled to
Philadelphia in
hopes of
discovering
new
psychological
weaponry. The
Army installed
three large
trailers with
padded cells
between two
cell blocks and
began nearly 10
years of mind-
control
experiments.
Though the
inmates were
paid relatively
well by prison
standards ($2
to $3 a day),
many were so
incapacitated
by the
experimental
agents (hefty
doses of drugs
like atropine,
scopolamine,
and
belladonoids)
that they no
longer
remembered
their names or
where they
were, and were
made to wear
name tags so
that guards and
others could
identify them.
Despite the
prison system’s
willingness to
become a secret
military testing
site, Army
physicians were
not enthralled
with Kligman’s
operation. “I
was not pleased
with the quality
of work there,”
admitted Dr.
James S.
Ketchum. “I
was not
satisfied with
the way he was
using our
initial subjects,
and I expressed
myself rather
assertively.”
Army Lt. Col.
M.G. Bottiglieri
was even more

critical,
blasting
Kligman’s
reports as
“pure gibberish
… absolutely
useless …
nothing but a
list of clichés
seemingly
pasted together
without
consideration
of coherence in
an attempt to
provide a
facade of
competence
and ability.”
But the Philly
skin doctor had
what they
wanted: test
subjects. And
so the
relationship
continued;
even the CIA
came calling
for its research
pursuits.
The upshot was

the creation of
an unusual
cottage
industry run by
Kligman under
the auspices of
the University
of
Pennsylvania,
the U.S.
government,
and an array of
pharmaceutical
companies, a
huge Kmart of
human-
research
opportunities
for everything
from
deodorants,
detergents, and
athlete’s foot
medications to
phase-one drug
tests, cancer
studies for
tobacco
companies, and
skin-hardening
experiments for
the military.
Though the
phenomenon
was not unique
—at least half
the state prison
systems during
the 1960s
hosted medical
research—none
rivaled the city
of Philadelphia
for the number
of protocols,
inmates
involved, and
years of
operation. For
over a quarter-
century, the
prison system
of the nation’s
third-largest
city became an
experimentation
factory of
unraveled
proportions,
and no one said
a word.
***
You can help

support
Tablet’s unique
brand of
Jewish
journalism.
Click here to
donate today.
Allen M.
Hornblum is the
author of six
books, including,
most recently,
American
Colossus: Big Bill
Tilden and the
Creation of
Modern Tennis.
EMAIL
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