The Great Starvation Experiment: The Heroic Men Who Starved So That Millions Could Live

by Todd Tucker

Book Overview

What does it feel like to starve? To feel your body cry out for nourishment, to think only of food? How many fitful, hungry nights must pass before dreams of home-cooked meals metastasize into nightmares of cannibalism? Why would anyone volunteer to find out?

In The Great Starvation Experiment, historian Todd Tucker tells the harrowing story of thirty-six young men who willingly and bravely faced down profound, consuming hunger. As...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743270304
• ISBN13: 9780743270304
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.2" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

The Great Starvation Experiment is a great read!

The Great Starvation Experiment is a great read! The doctor and the men involved were courageous. The contribution that these men and Dr. Keys made to mankind and science is amazing. It had to be very hard to do what they did; starve themselves and watch what happened. The author delivers the story of this experiment with an intelligent writing style. He covers the scientific and ethical reasons for reasons for the experiment. The personal stories of the men (guinea pigs) makes their experience come to life for the reader. There is humor and sadness. Starvation has always been a threat to man. It is interesting to see starvation faced head on - on purpose! I recommend this book to anyone interested in history, medicine, nutrition, science, conscientious objectors or WWII.

Fascinating!

As an alumnus from the Univesity of Minnesota, it was incredibly interesting to see how my alma mater factored into this important research. I heard whispers of this story while in school at the U, but never enough to be able to piece the entire story together. I couldn't put this book down! Plus, it was fun to be able to read about what the campus was like during this period of American History.

A wonderful story, all the better that it's true!

Nope it's not about anorexia, but it is fascinating! All manner of details about hunger, calorie restrictions, who loses weight, who doesn't, and why! This study, run by Dr. Alan Keys (who also invented the K ration) is the seminal (and only) work on human starvation. This book is its story and the story of the men who participated to make the study possible. As someone who is firmly opposed to the taking of any life I can relate to the characters motivations and be inspired by their perserverence. Mr. Tucker does a wonderful job of bringing all the characters to life. One stylistic trick I really enjoyed was his blending of characters' colorful descriptions right into the authors narrative so that for a moment the narrative becomes an illustration of the attitude of the person being discussed. Highly Recomended -Ian

A Different Kind of War Hero

As the veterans of World War II begin their inevitiable departure folks realize that if they're going to honor them it'd better be soon. The same goes for a different kind of war hero, the conscientious objectors who were willing not only to stand up for their beliefs in the face of overwhelming disdain, but were just as willing to risk their lives to serve humanity through Civilian Public Service. Over the years I've met some of the Brethren, Mennonites, Friends, and others who refused to serve because of their religious beliefs. They were anything but cowards. Some pioneered the science of Smoke Jumping, others exposed the abuses of nuring homes and asylums, while many served as medical guinea pigs. I met one of the latter about fifteen years ago, a man named Carlysle Frederick, who once admitted under questioning that he'd taken part in the starvation experiment. I wrote a few articles about him, but I always felt the story needed to be widely known. Thank heavens for this book. The author has done his homework, and carefully examines the ethical questions that undergird what was a daring and almost brutal experiment which has, as the subtitle suggests, saved millions of lives over the year. One cannot read this book without admiring both the calm and measured religious convictions of the three historic peace churches, the Brethren, the Mennonites, and the Friends, as well as the many others from other traditions. The heroism of the participants, the extreme privations they endured, and their good humor, all deriving from their desire to serve humanity during their service through CPS, is worth honoring as another way to be patriotic. For those who want to know more about CPS and related forms of service for peace, I also recommend the book A Cup of Cold Water, by J. Kenneth Kreider. Frank Ramirez

A Different Kind of War Hero

In the final months of World War II, thirty-six Americans were held in a bunker hidden away from the public. They were systematically starved until they had lost a quarter of their weight. The men suffered a range of symptoms (aside from extreme weight loss) including incapacitating weakness and constant headaches. One man chopped off three of his fingers to escape the agony. The Americans were starved under the supervision of a doctor who was conducting an experiment. Sounds like a tale of Nazi atrocities, but Todd Tucker's Great Starvation Experiment is about a group of conscientious objectors who volunteered for this experiment in order to learn how best to aid the recovery of starvation victims. The doctor in charge, Ancel Keys, later became famous for discovering the relationship between fatty diets and heart disease. In addition to covering the experiment itself, Tucker gives us a biography of Dr. Keys, a short history of the conscientious objector in America, and brings up the question of ethics in medicine. After the Nuremberg Trials, the Nuremberg Code was written, an international document detailing standards governing medical experimentation on humans. U.S. doctors refused to accept the code, claiming they were already bound by their own extremely high standards. Tucker presents evidence that not all American doctors felt bound by personal and professional ethics and conducted some rather alarming and harmful experiments on people, usually without their knowledge. The Great Starvation Experiment is readable and entertaining. It was so readable, with snippets of conversation and anecdotes, that I began to doubt its reliability. But the extensive bibliography, detailed notes, and many interviews convinced me that this is a complete and factual story of a little-known episode of the World War II homefront.