"This admirably comprehensive story of the use of prisoners for medical research is embarrassingly painful
to read . . . This encyclopedic, well-documented treatise . . . is a fascinating story."
--Journal of the American Medical Association
"Hornblum's book is awesome, revealing the sanctimonious venality of American medicine . . . Excellent! Highly
recommended."
--Choice
"Admirably comprehensive story of the use of prisoners for medical research...Acres of Skin is the result
of exhaustive scholarship...a comprehensive anthology of the use of prisoners for medical experimentation in other
U.S. prisons and universities...This encylopedic, well-documented treatise is a fascinating story...Hornblum has
recalled for all of us a history of abominable medical rsearch and has given us all the opportunity to reflect
on where we were when they experimented on prisoners and where we will be in the next ethical dilemma in medical
science."
--Journal of the American Medical Association
"A recently released expose has sparked new interest in this controversial chapter of American medical history."
--Village Voice
"A startling new book."
--Philadelphia Tribune
Routledge Web Site, May, 2000
Summary
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.