14. In the course of their experiments upon POWs, Unit 731 amputated the limbs of prisoners without anesthetic to study the effects of blood loss and improve battlefield medicine for Japanese soldiers
Like their Axis allies, the Nazis, the Japanese Empire was not averse to using incarcerated prisoners for the purposes of medical and military research. Among the subjects of interest to members of Unit 731, the secretive research group, was the improved survivability of Japanese soldiers on and off the battlefield. Seeking to understand the limits of human physical endurance, in particular the effects of major blood loss, Unit 731 engaged in the barbaric practice of non-consensual human testing. These individuals were typically not anesthetized and aware the entire time, with the pain suffered an integral part of the brutal experiments themselves.
One repeated form of this experiment was unnecessary medical amputation of certain limbs to study the consequences of battlefield medicine. Arms and legs would be removed, with patients observed to determine how long it might take for them to succumb, for wounds to attract infection or the tolerance of the body to increasingly large dismemberments. On other occasions, it has been recorded that limbs were surgically altered purely out of curiosity. These appendages would be reattached to the wrong parts of the body, or frozen until just the head and torso of the still-living prisoner remained.