Sharing from East Carolina University

East Carolina University’s Laupus Health Sciences Library and our Medical History Interest Group will be hosting Sheena M. Eagan and David M. Durant's "Beyond Unit 731: Japanese Medical Atrocities in the Greater Pacific War, 1931-45: Context and Implications" on November 3rd, 2025 at 2pm at this link. 

Presentation Description: Much is known about the horrific medical experiments conducted by Nazi physicians and researchers at Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Less well known are the numerous horrific atrocities performed by Japanese medical personnel during the Second World War. Unit 731, a biological warfare research complex, performed hideous medical experiments that claimed thousands of lives. Its work culminated in a number of biological warfare attacks as part of Japan’s war in China.

Unfortunately, such horrific acts went well beyond Unit 731, involving both the Japanese Army and Navy Medical Corps, and the civilian Japanese medical establishment. This included regular involvement of medical personnel in war crimes, killing of non-ambulatory wounded, and the widespread practice of vivisection as a tool of both medical research and education.  This presentation will explore the history of these crimes, their context, and the broader conditions that made them possible.

About the Speakers: 

Sheena M. Eagan, MPH, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioethics and Interdisciplinary Studies at the Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, where she also directs the Medical Humanities & Ethics Distinction Track. Her research explores the intersections of bioethics, medical humanities, and the history of medicine, with particular attention to ethical challenges in times of war, disaster, and public health crisis. She has published and presented widely on military medical ethics, social determinants of health, and the historical legacies of medicine under conditions of social and political upheaval.

David M. Durant is Professor/Federal Documents & Social Sciences Librarian at East Carolina University, in Greenville, NC. He holds a Master of Science in Library & Information Services from the University of Michigan, and an MA in Russian and Soviet History from the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests include the use of disinformation and propaganda, reading in the digital age, and 20th Century history.

This presentation is part of the Ruth and John Moskop History of Medicine Lecture Series. All are welcome and refreshments will be provided.