Editing Unit 731 (section)

==== Frostbite testing ====
[[File:Scan Of Yoshimura Hisato's Frostbite Research Data.png|thumb|Scan of [[Yoshimura Hisato]]'s [[frostbite]] research data]]

Army Engineer Hisato Yoshimura<!--Yoshimura is the family name as per http://www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/user/tsuchiya/gyoseki/presentation/UNESCOkumamoto07.html, but this article should generally use Western order for Japanese people.--> conducted experiments by taking captives outside, dipping various appendages into water of varying temperatures, and allowing the [[Frostbite|limb to freeze]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/user/tsuchiya/gyoseki/presentation/UNESCOkumamoto07.html|title=Self Determination by Imperial Japanese Doctors|website=www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp|access-date=2019-05-31|archive-date=2019-05-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190531063454/http://www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/user/tsuchiya/gyoseki/presentation/UNESCOkumamoto07.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Once frozen, Yoshimura would strike their affected limbs with a short stick, "emitting a sound resembling that which a board gives when it is struck".<ref name="Kristor" /> Ice was then chipped away, with the affected area being subjected to various treatments. Military personnel of the Unit referred to Yoshimura as a "scientific devil" and a "cold-blooded animal" due to his strictness and involvement in mass killings and inhumane scientific tests, which included soaking the fingers of a three-day-old child in water containing ice and salt.<ref>{{cite book |last1=LaFleur| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gGQYOvo9-AsC&q=Yoshimura+ |first1=William |last2=Böhme |first2=Gernot |last3=Shimazono |first3=Susumu |title=Dark medicine: rationalizing unethical medical research |date=2007 |publisher=Indiana University Press|pages=76–77 |location=US| isbn=978-0-253-22041-7 }}</ref>

Naoji Uezono, a member of Unit 731, described in a 1980s interview a grisly scene where Yoshimura had "two naked men put in an area 40–50 degrees below zero and researchers filmed the whole process until [the subjects] died. [The subjects] suffered such agony they were digging their nails into each other's flesh."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Emanuel |first1=Ezekiel |last2=Grady |first2=Christine |last3=Crouch |first3=Robert |last4=Lie |first4=Reidar |last5=Miller |first5=Franklin |title=The Oxford Textbook of Clinical Research Ethics |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=US|page=36}}</ref> Yoshimura's lack of remorse was evident in an article he wrote for the Japanese Journal of Physiology in 1950 in which he admitted to using 20 children and a three-day-old infant in experiments which exposed them to zero-degree-Celsius ice and salt water.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Yoshimura |first1=Hisato |last2=Iida |first2=Toshiyuki |title=Studies on the Reactivity of Skin Vessels to Extreme Cold |date=1950 |publisher=Japanese Journal Of Physiology |location=Japan}}</ref> Although this article drew criticism, Yoshimura denied any guilt when contacted by a reporter from the ''[[Mainichi Shimbun]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kei-ichi |first1=Tsuneishi |last2=Asano |first2=Tomizo |title=Kieta saikin-sen butai to jiketsu shita futari no igakusha |script-title=ja:消えた細菌戦部隊と自決した二人の医学者|trans-title=The biological warfare unit and two physicians who committed suicide |language=ja |date=1982 |publisher=Shinchosha |location=Tokyo |isbn=9784103440017}}</ref>

Yoshimura developed a "resistance index of frostbite" based on the mean temperature 5 to 30&nbsp;minutes after immersion in freezing water, the temperature of the first rise after immersion, and the time until the temperature first rises after immersion. In a number of separate experiments it was then determined how these parameters depend on the time of day a victim's body part was immersed in freezing water, the surrounding temperature and humidity during immersion, how the victim had been treated before the immersion ("after keeping awake for a night", "after hunger for 24 hours", "after hunger for 48 hours", "immediately after heavy meal", "immediately after hot meal", "immediately after muscular exercise", "immediately after cold bath", "immediately after hot bath"), what type of food the victim had been fed over the five days preceding the immersions with regard to dietary nutrient intake ("high protein (of animal nature)", "high protein (of vegetable nature)", "low protein intake", and "standard diet"), and salt intake (45&nbsp;g NaCl per day, 15&nbsp;g NaCl per day, no salt).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eckart |first1=Wolfgang |title=Man, Medicine, and the State: The Human Body as an Object of Government Sponsored Medical Research in the 20th Century |date=2006 |publisher=Franz Steiner Verlag |page=191}}</ref> This original data is seen in the attached figure.