Japanese military doctors conducted malaria experiments on soldiers

Research has uncovered evidence that Japanese military doctors conducted human experimentation on Japanese soldiers during the Second Sino-Japanese War. According to a paper identified by Seiya Matsuno, a researcher at Meiji Gakuin University’s Institute for International Peace, the experiments involved infecting soldiers with malaria.

In 1940 at the Army Hospital in Kunitai, Chiba Prefecture, doctors from the Imperial Japanese Army Medical School in Tokyo used mosquitoes to transmit the disease. After feeding mosquitoes on the blood of soldiers already infected with malaria, the insects were used to bite 10 soldiers hospitalized with mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. The subjects reportedly suffered from high fevers and physical pain.

Matsuno noted that the soldiers used in these experiments were not prisoners of war, but Japanese nationals. He highlighted the ethical concerns, stating that the subjects “may not have accurately understood the content and risks of the experiment” and pointed to a logic where individuals deemed unable to contribute to the war effort were treated as research material.