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During World War Two,
conscientious objectors in the US and the UK were asked to volunteer for medical research. In one project in the US, young men were starved for six months to help experts decide how to treat victims of mass starvation in Europe.In 1944, 26-year-old Marshall Sutton was a young idealist who wanted to change the world for the better. As a conscientious objector and Quaker, he refused to fight in the war but he still craved the chance to help his country.
"I wanted to identify with the suffering in the world at that time," he says. "I wanted to do something for society. I wanted to put myself in a little danger."
That danger came, unexpectedly, in the shape of a small brochure with a picture of children on the front.
"Will you starve that they be better fed?" it asked. It was a call for volunteers to act as human guinea pigs in a medical experiment at the University of Minnesota.
All over Europe people were starving - in the Netherlands, in Greece, in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union - and the US military wanted to learn how best to re-feed them. But first they had to find healthy people willing to be starved.
Perhaps surprisingly, hundreds of conscientious objectors - or COs - applied, all eager to help. Sutton was grateful to be one of 36 young men chosen.
"I felt very useful, fulfilled," he says. "There were hundreds of people like me who didn't have that type of opportunity, and I felt very fortunate that I could be there."
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But in some ways the project came too late. Even as the experiment continued, one Nazi concentration camp was liberated, then another - and the full horror of starvation became apparent.
"A hollow-eyed emaciated German Jew hobbled across to me," he reported. The man opened the door of a large cupboard. Inside there were about 20 corpses piled high.
"'Last night's crop,' said the man, almost casually. 'It'll be the same tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day.' The wretched inmates have been freed from their Nazi tormenters, but they've not yet been freed from slow starvation."
But while the results may have come too late for many of World War Two's victims, they still could help others.
In 1946, the researchers released a guide book for aid workers - Men and Hunger.
Its advice included:
- Show no partiality, and refrain from arguments; the starving are ready to argue on little provocation, but they usually regret it immediately
- Informing the group what is being done, and why, is just as important as getting things done - billboards are the easiest way
- Starvation increases the need for privacy and quiet - noise of all kinds seems to be very bothersome and especially so during mealtimes
- Energy is a commodity to be hoarded - living and eating quarters should be arranged conveniently
- A thoughtful worker will make use of the fact that the starving are emotionally affected by the weather -some special and cheerful activities might be saved for bad day
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