Editing Unit 731 (section)

=== Vivisection ===
Thousands of men, women, children, and infants interned at [[prisoner of war camps]] were subjected to [[vivisection]], often performed without [[anesthesia]] and usually lethal.<ref>Nicholas D. Kristof ''New York Times'', March 17, 1995. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2D71630F934A25750C0A963958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=print "Unmasking Horror: A special report. Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110317115032/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2D71630F934A25750C0A963958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=print |date=2011-03-17 }}</ref><ref name="dissect">{{cite news |title=Dissect them alive: order not to be disobeyed |author=Richard Lloyd Parry |newspaper=Times Online |date=February 25, 2007 |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1438491.ece |location=London |access-date=February 26, 2007 |archive-date=May 23, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110523225449/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1438491.ece |url-status=dead }}</ref> In a video interview, former Unit&nbsp;731 member Okawa Fukumatsu admitted to having vivisected a pregnant woman.<ref name="vimeo1">{{cite web |title=(RARE) Unit 731 surgeon Okawa Fukumatsu (interview footage) |url=https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/625179260 |website=(RARE) Unit 731 surgeon Okawa Fukumatsu (interview footage) |access-date=2021-10-07 |archive-date=2021-10-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007074509/https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/625179260 |url-status=live }}</ref> Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Researchers performed [[Minimally invasive procedure#Invasive procedures|invasive surgery]] on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.technologyartist.com/unit_731/ |title=Interview with former Unit 731 member Nobuo Kamada |access-date=February 5, 2004 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061119053825/http://www.technologyartist.com/unit_731/ |archive-date=November 19, 2006}}</ref>

Prisoners had limbs [[amputated]] in order to study [[Blood Loss|blood loss]]. Limbs removed were sometimes reattached to the opposite side of victims' bodies. Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and their [[esophagus]] reattached to the [[Gastrointestinal tract|intestines]]. Parts of organs, such as the brain, lungs, and liver, were removed from others.<ref name="dissect"/> Imperial Japanese Army surgeon [[Ken Yuasa]] said that practising vivisection on human subjects was widespread even outside Unit&nbsp;731,<ref name="nyt">{{cite news |title=Unmasking Horror – A special report. Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity |first=Nicholar D. |last=Kristof |date=17 March 1995 |newspaper=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/17/world/unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html?pagewanted=2 |access-date=20 February 2017 |archive-date=7 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107115922/http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/17/world/unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html?pagewanted=2 |url-status=live }}</ref> estimating that at least 1,000 Japanese personnel were involved in the practice in mainland China.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/10/24/reference/vivisectionist-recalls-his-day-of-reckoning/|title=Vivisectionist recalls his day of reckoning|first=Jun|last=Hongo|date=24 October 2007|via=Japan Times Online|access-date=16 May 2013|archive-date=1 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170401172838/http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/10/24/reference/vivisectionist-recalls-his-day-of-reckoning//|url-status=live}}</ref> Yuasa said that when he performed vivisections on captives, they were "all for practice rather than for research", and that such practises were "routine" among Japanese doctors stationed in China during the war.<ref name=":0" />

''[[The New York Times]]'' interviewed a former member of Unit 731. Insisting on anonymity, the former Japanese medical assistant recounted his first experience in vivisecting a live human being, who had been deliberately infected with the [[Plague (disease)|plague]], for the purpose of developing "plague bombs" for war. <blockquote>"The fellow knew that it was over for him, and so he didn't struggle when they led him into the room and tied him down, but when I picked up the scalpel, that's when he began screaming. I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped. This was all in a day's work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kristof |first=Nicholas D. |date=1995-03-17 |title=Unmasking Horror – A special report.; Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/17/world/unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html |access-date=2023-01-03 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref></blockquote>

Other sources provided information on usual practice in the Unit for surgeons to stuff a rag (or medical gauze) into the mouth of prisoners before commencing vivisection in order to stifle any screaming.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Yang |first1=Yanjun |title=Japan's Biological Warfare in China |date=2016 |publisher=Foreign Language Press |location=Beijing |page=13}}</ref>