Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison | 
| Author: Allen Hornblum
Publisher: Routledge
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $26.96
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 163983
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.8 x 1
ISBN: 0415923360
Dewey Decimal Number: 174.28
EAN: 9780415923361
ASIN: 0415923360
Publication Date: May 1999
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Product Description
In the first expose of unjust medical experimentation since David Rothman's Willowbrook's Wars, Allen M. Hornblum releases devastating stories from within the walls of Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison. For more than two decades, from the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s, inmates were used, in exchange for a few dollars, as guinea pigs in a host of medical experiments.
An array of doctors, in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania and prison officials, established Holmesburg as a laboratory testing ground. Hundreds of prisoners were used to test products from facial creams to far more hazardous, even potentially lethal, substances such chemical warfare agents.
Based on in-depth interviews with dozens of prisoners as well as the doctors and prison officials who performed or enforced these experimental tests, Hornblum paints a disturbing portrait of abuse, moral indifference, and greed. Central to this account are the millions of dollars many of America's leading drug and consumer goods companies made available for the all too eager doctors seeking fame and fortune through their medical experiments.
Acres of Skin is rigorously researched and shocking in its depiction of men treated as laboratory animals.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Horrifying August 10, 2005
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book clearly shows man's ability to use science for evil knows no bounds. What I truly don't understand is why none of the "testing" people are in prison.
A Shocking Expose Relevant in Today's World October 8, 2004
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
And you thought that horrible "medical" experiments on humans only took place in Germany and Japan during World War II? This exhaustively researched and documented book about using prisoners in Pennsylvania as guinea pigs to test the safety and efficacy of various types of medical, pharmacutical, cosmetic, and military products during the post-war years was an enormous surprise to this reader.
How so many highly respected and educated Americans could take part in these such immoral behavior is extremely instructive in light of the involvement of American military reservists in the recent Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq. Apparently normal human beings taking part in abberant behavior as a result of certain unusual circumstances, occurred in Nazi Germany and Japan during the war, in Pennsylvania during the post-war years, and now at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Although the physicians and scientists in this book were studying the effects of pharmacuticals on human beings, often with horrific results, this book is a fascinating study of the persons conducting the experiments and how they came to justify their actions.
 Fluff June 26, 2003
5 out of 37 found this review helpful
My god man. How much fluff can you put into one book. Mr. Hornblum, I have so much information to attain and so many books waiting on a list to be read that anything with useless time wasting fluff, aka long drawn out paragraphs, automatically goes on my "how not to write a book" list. I am sorry but your book made me more frustrated than enlightened, with all of your redundant repeats of what people said, told in eight differing ways, I am not sure if you thought the audience needed this much repeating or if you just needed to add a couple 20 pages to the final draft for appearances. But nonetheless I cannot sit and waste my precious time reading words of nothingness when there is an eternity of usefull information sitting out there waiting for me. *No arrogance intended, "I" as in us, humans.* I just don't see any excuse for this. Out of the 100% of book I would say there is about 25-35% of usefull concise information in it. Au Revoir`
A book you can't find anywhere else! February 9, 2003
3 out of 17 found this review helpful
I know the author of the book. He has a strong personality, the same time a kind and loving person! He went through many difficulties for publishing this book but none stopped him from revealing the truth!
 Shocking! May 13, 2002
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
We are all aware of the nuclear experiments done during the cold war, right? Well insight shows from this book that many prisoners and people of lower social classes were experimental guinea pigs in the name of Modern Science. It is horrifying to read, and yet interesting at the same time. We also brought over experimental Nazi Doctors from the Holocaust to help the US Government on some experiments and were even given alias names to keep their identities and whereabouts secret. This is even happening today believe it or not, and it is horrifying to think what they have done during the Cold War, I come to think, what ... are they doing now? It's a scary thought!
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