Medical experimentation on prisoners (part 1): historical milestones

The exploitation of prisoners in medical research is an ancient phenomenon. However, the history of the XXth century was marked by major events that reached the peak of horror during the second world war. Although the collective mind has remembered the outrages of the Nazi regime, the truth is that these practices were adopted by the majority of the military powers of that time, and continued after the end of the war. This history note is the first in a series that aims to review the circumstances and implications of these dark moments in the history of medical research in order to pay tribute to the countless victims who paid with their lives for «scientific progress» and to understand the reasons for current ethical considerations in biomedical experimentation on persons deprived of liberty.