Involuntary Chemical Sterilization of Humans

(Dieffenbachia seguine)

On July 14, 1933, six months after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the Third Reich, Germany enacted the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Defective Offspring." This legislation mandated the compulsory sterilization of all citizens suffering from "feeble-mindedness," mental illnesses, alcoholism, and a range of other conditions, many of which had never been considered hereditary. Over the following two years, nearly 1% of Germany's population aged 17 to 24 were subjected to surgical sterilization by order of the Hereditary Health Court: men underwent vasectomies, while women had their fallopian tubes ligated[1].

Beginning in 1941, the official doctrine of the Third Reich called for the complete extermination of Jews in Germany and subsequently in the occupied territories. However, due to the demand for labor, an alternative method of genocide—sterilization—was chosen. In the future, the same fate was intended for Russians, Poles, and Roma. The previously used methods were deemed unsuitable due to the high labor intensity of surgical procedures, necessitating the development of a cheap and efficient technology for the mass sterilization of millions of non-Aryan men and women.

The foundation of the new method was based on the work of Dr. Gerhard Madaus. Madaus was a co-owner of a pharmaceutical company that produced medicines from plant materials and had extensive knowledge of ethnobotany. He discovered that in Brazil, local tribes used the plant Dieffenbachia to castrate their enemies, applying its toxic sap to the tips of arrows or secretly adding it to food.

Gerhard Madaus (1890–1942)

Dieffenbachia seguine — a remarkable plant also known as "dumb cane." In 1707, British physician and naturalist Hans Sloane, in one of his works, explained the origin of this name. It turns out that the sap of this plant contains microscopic crystals of calcium oxalate, which cause inflammation of the salivary ducts, accompanied by severe swelling and dryness of the mucous membranes of the mouth and tongue. The plant closely resembles sugar cane, and an unsuspecting person who accidentally chews its leaves or stem may become completely mute for a period of time. Due to intense pain and a swollen tongue, this forced muteness can last from several days to two weeks. Typically, the inflammatory reaction, manifesting as bullous stomatitis, does not extend beyond the oral cavity and is not accompanied by respiratory impairment. Contact of the toxic sap with the eyes often leads to temporary blindness and, in severe cases, to complete loss of vision[5].

In the 19th century, in Jamaica, the sap of this plant was used to coat the mouths of disobedient African-American slaves as a form of punishment. A case is described from the 1950s in the Bahamas, where the sap of this plant was used against one of the witnesses in a court trial. As a result, due to temporary muteness, the witness was unable to testify, and the criminal was acquitted[5].

In the early 1940s, G. Madaus decided to investigate the veracity of claims regarding the ability of Dieffenbachia to induce infertility. Through experiments on rats, he discovered that the extract of Dieffenbachia seguine equally effectively destroyed the cells of the gonads in both male and female laboratory animals. G. Madaus, along with his colleague, published the results of their research in a German medical journal in February 1941[2]. This publication became the first and last to be made public, as all subsequent experiments were conducted under the strictest secrecy. This was due to the fact that the work caught the attention of the Czech dermatologist Adolf Pokorny, who immediately realized the potential benefits this discovery could bring to the Third Reich and to himself personally. In October 1941, he wrote a letter directly to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler:

According to preliminary estimates, the preparation derived from Dieffenbachia was expected to possess three advantageous properties for Nazi physicians. First, it was active both as an injectable and when administered orally, allowing it to be covertly added to the food of unsuspecting victims. Second, the infertility it induced was irreversible. Third, according to the claims of Brazilian indigenous people, a single dose was sufficient to achieve complete sterilization in humans. The effectiveness of this method was planned to be tested on Romani prisoners held in the Lackenbach concentration camp.

However, as it soon became apparent, the chemical sterilization method proved to be far less effective than had been reported to Himmler, or rather, it completely failed to meet the Nazis' expectations. There were several reasons for this.

• Doses close to lethal were required to destroy the reproductive systems of animals. Some of the animals experimented on by G. Madaus died, as the preparation had a broad spectrum of toxic effects, and infertility was only one of its properties[3].
• The extract of Dieffenbachia had to be administered daily for a period of 1 to 3 months[2].
• Enormous doses of the preparation were required to achieve the desired effect—equivalent to approximately 200 grams of Dieffenbachia extract daily for a human[2].
• During the war, the import of plant material from South America was severely restricted, and chemical synthesis proved to be too complex. Special greenhouses were built to cultivate the plant, but even this method made it difficult to obtain sufficient quantities of the active substance. Even if large-scale cultivation in greenhouses had been possible, it is unlikely that the concentration of active compounds would have matched that of plants growing naturally in South America[3].
• There is no evidence that the suppression of reproductive function was permanent or irreversible. Fox & Barnes (1954) attempted to replicate G. Madaus's experiments but found no effect of Dieffenbachia extracts on spermatogenesis in rats[5].

In the end, this idea had to be abandoned. A much simpler and more economically viable solution turned out to be the covert irradiation of the gonads with X-rays, conducted under the guise of medical examinations of prisoners. However, this sadistic experiment by Nazi doctors also ended in complete failure—the dose of radiation required for complete sterilization of men or women caused severe burns or death.

Dieffenbachia proved to be just another among many poisonous plants. The last article dedicated to the effects of *Dieffenbachia* on the reproductive system dates back to 1958[6]. Later studies revealed that the irritant effect of its sap is caused not only by the sharp crystals of calcium salts but also by poorly understood glycosides and proteolytic enzymes[4].