II. Hormone Experiments. The prosecution asserts that Poppendick ordered these experiments and consequently had knowledge of them before they began.
Regarding these so-called experiments, which were not mentioned in the Indictment, the defense has been quite exhaustive. It believes it has proved:
1) That the alleged hormone experiments were not criminal experiments but a method of treatment already recognized in medical science;
2) That this method of treatment was in no way dangerous; that no fatalities occurred or are conceivable;
3) That the orders for these experiments emanated from Himmler and Lolling, but that the single letter with the signature "By order, Poppendick" is by no means an order that these experiments should be undertaken, but is a letter in which Grawitz tells Dr. Ding to assist Dr. Vaernet in the preliminary chemical research by giving him laboratory material, after Dr. Lolling had asked Grawitz for this assistance.
4) That no regular experimental reports went from Dr. Vaernet to Poppendick.
Since this method of treatment was not criminal, and since furthermore the defendant Poppendick could not regard the aims and execution of this method of treatment as criminal, how can he be held particularly responsible according to Counts Two and Three because of this alleged knowledge.
III. Typhus Experiments. The prosecution asserts that Poppendick asked Mrugowsky to tell Ding to begin typhus experiments with sulfonamides from the research department Vonkennel, and bases its contention on documents NO 1182to NO 1185.
These facts may be true, but the prosecution is forgetting the following:
a. Professor Vonkennel asked the Reich Physician to find him a clinic with soldiers infected with typhus, at which Vonkennel's already sufficiently tested sulfonamide drug was to be further tested. In other words, he wanted to have the director of a typhus clinic, which was not available to himself, carry out a normal clinical test such as is undertaken daily in large hospitals.
b.) The Reich Physician requested such opportunity from the competent hygienist, Mrugowsky.
c.) The measures necessary for this purpose were initiated. Whether such clinical experiment was actually carried out, cannot be gathered from the entire body of evidence introduced.
d.) This contemplated clinical experiment, even from the purely factual point of view, has nothing to do with the typhus experiments of Dr. Ding dealt with before this Tribunal.
So far, the intermittent activity of Poppendick by order of the Reich Physician constitutes no connection with criminal experiments. Accordingly, all four suppositions of complicity through knowledge, which might be of importance within the scope of Counts II and III of the indictment, are missing.
The prosecution further contends that Poppendick was aware of the typhus experiments proper of Dr. Ding which have been discussed in detail here.
The defense has, in its closing brief, in sufficient detail expressed its opinion concerning this contention, being able to prove beyond doubt that Poppendick was not in a position to have such knowledge since he neither attended the lecture of Dr. Ding at the Third Consulting Conference, nor could he, from the Document No.582, Prosecution Exhibit 286, the publication of Ding on Acridin, gather that the foundations of this work were allegedly criminal experiments. Neither has the prosecution been able to raise any justifiable objections against these two last-named facts.
IV. Sterilization Experiments. The prosecution maintains, without being in possession of the necessary documentary evidence, that Poppendick was familiar with the criminal sterilization experiments performed by Clauberg, and that they were even supported by him.
As previously during the taking of evidence, so also in its closing brief the prosecution attempts to confuse the two groups of pertinent features: Prevention of female sterility, i.e. treatment of SS fiancees who had become sterile through disease, and the actual sterilization experiments of Professor Clauberg. This confusion must be ascribed not least to the erroneous translation.
Therefore, the task of the defense, in the detailed exposition of its opinion on this question, consisted in separating these two groups of facts properly from each other, in actual accordance with the evidence introduced.
Whoever knew about Clauberg that he was a physician for treatment of female sterility is not, through this knowledge, forced to possess knowledge also of Clauberg's other activity, performance of sterilization experiments.
So far this mere assumption of the prosecution that Poppendick must have known also about the sterilization experiments of Professor Clauberg cannot possibly be maintained, in particular as no evidence to this effect is available.
Consequently, the defendant Poppendick cannot be charged with a special responsibility for the sterilization experiments when not even positive proof of his knowledge of these experiments could be produced.
V. Sulfonamide Experiments. The prosecution maintains that Poppendick learned about the experiments prior to their completion and supported them.
As to the last-named contention of support, no conclusive evidence has been produced which could in any way be applicable to this form of participation.
Concerning the first contention of knowledge of the experiments before they were completed but after they had started, I am be allowed to refer in general to my detailed exposition on this alleged knowledge of the sulfonamide experiments in my closing brief. Let us, however, for once assume that the contention of the prosecution is correct: that Poppendick really had learned of the sulfonamide experiments through the intermediate report of Professor Gebhardt. The question is: did he get this knowledge in time in order to have the experiments stopped?
Part of the experiments are described already in this intermediate report, even though the more difficult experiments were carried out only subsequently. Undoubtedly the possibility of preventing the following experiments must still have existed.
But did the defendant Poppendick, in his position at that time of occasional assistant, possess the power to do so? This particular question must undoubtedly be answered with "no" in view of my subsequent exposition concerning the position of the defendant.
VI. Phlegmone Experiments. The prosecution maintains that Poppendick must have known about these experiments. To what extent this contention is not true I have discussed in my answer to the closing brief of the prosecution. But let us assume for once that Poppendick had really, through the final report of Dr. Grawitz, learned about the phlegmon experiments, was then this knowledge obtained early enough to establish the possibility for him to prevent the experiments?
This can be denied without further argument since the experiments described in this report were already completed.
It is consequently not possible to consider his knowledge alleged by the prosecution, to be legally significant in relation to Counts II and III of the indictment.
VII. Polygal Experiment. The prosecution maintains that Poppendick must have known about these experiments and even encouraged them.
The last-named contention has boon supported by no piece of evidence.
Now, concerning the contention of knowledge, it appears to the defense above all important to separate clearly on one side the polygal experiments of Dr. Ploetner and, on the other hand, the experiments of Dr. Rascher, in connection with which shootings are said to have occurred although it is not possible to know for sure, on the basis of the evidence produced, whether they were actually carried out. Here I am interested only in the blood coagulating experiments of Dr. Ploetner described by the prisoners Neff and Puzengruber who participated voluntarily as completely innocous and customary. I here refer to my exposition in answer to the closing brief of the prosecution.
On the basis of the evidence produced by the prosecution and the defense, not even a well-founded assumption to the effect that Poppendick must have known about the blood coagulating experiments of Dr. Ploetner can be entertained. Still loss can he be charged with a special responsibility.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, as you are starting a new subject of your argument, the Tribunal will now be in recess for a few moments.
(a recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel may proceed.
DP. BOEHM: Mr. President, your Honor, I am now coming to VIII of my statement, Malaria experiments.
Here again the Prosecution maintained that the defendant Poppendick must have known about Professor Schilling's malaria experiments.
As to the entries in the diary, Sievers did have reference to Poppendick. In his affidavit Sievers, as well as Poppendick himself, in the witness box, have pronounced their opinion on this matter. Their statements are undisputed. From no evidence in possession of the prosecution can knowledge of allegedly criminal activity on the part of Professor Schilling be deduced. Even if one were to admit that Poppendick had heard of these experiments early enough, it cannot be proved that he had the power to prevent them. More about this later.
IX. Seawater Experiments. The Prosecution neglected in its closing brief to assert that the defendant Poppendick knew anything of these experiments. Now is there any evidence whatsoever that he did. Consequently I do not have to enter upon this question.
X. Freezing Experiments. The Prosecution asserts that the defendant Poppendick had knowledge of the dry cold experiments before their beginning, and of the wet cold experiments after their conclusion. I believe that in my closing brief I have sufficiently proved that Poppendick could have had no knowledge of the wet cold experiments. Moreover, such knowledge would be of no importance in determining a particular responsibility according to Counts Two and Three, because at the time of the Grawitz-Rascher discussion, to which Poppendick was later called, the wet cold experiments had already been concluded. So far as the dry cold experiments are concerned, it can be unmistakably seen from the evidence presented by the defense that in this conference there was undoubtedly discussion of additional experience in cases of freezing suffered by troops in the East; this experience was to be collected; and by no means was there discussion of intended experiments in concentration camps. Even if we were to grant that Poppendick found out about criminal dry cold experiments at this conference, before they began, where is the proof that he really, on the basis of his official position, was in a position to stop these dry cold experiments?
XI. Epidemic Jaundice Experiments. Here again the Prosecution in its closing brief neglected to assert that the defendant Poppendick was guilty. It merely asserts that at the time that these allegedly criminal experiments took place Poppendick had long been ah important associate of Grawitz's.
Since no responsibility, according to Counts Two and Three, can be deduced from such assertions without substantiating proof and without legal significance, I need not enter upon this question.
If I have dealt with the individual groups of experiments in the same order as in the closing brief of the Prosecution, I have not done so in order to agree that the groups of experiments that are not mentioned in the indictment, so far as they here pertain, namely, hormone experiments, phlegmon experiments, and polygal experiments, are of legal weight within the frame of Counts Two and Three. On the contrary, I refer you to my statements on this juridical problem regarding the experiments that are not mentioned in the indictment.
The defense recognizes the experiments that are not mentioned in the indictment, in the event that they really were criminal, only so far as it depends on the defendant's knowledge of them whether the defendant is guilty or not under Count Four.
So far as the already treated experiments are concerned, it is apparent that knowledge on the part of the defendant or, more than that, support, an order, or execution by the defendant has not been proved.
The time at my disposal does not permit me to refer to the exhaustive treatment of these counts of the indictment in my closing brief.
In view of all these deductions from the evidence put in, I apply, with reference to the charges under Counts I, II, and III, for the acquittal of the defendant Poppendick.
I am all the more justified in making this application that I am in the position in what follows to prove that the defendant Poppendick't position was not that which the Prosecution ascribe to him, furthermore, that Poppendick also in his position in Grawitz' office did not have the power to prevent not yet concluded criminal experiments if he obtained knowledge of them.
What I am about to say appears to me of great importance with reference to Count IV.
The Prosecution describes the defendant Poppendick in its closing brief as "a very old member of the SS" and as "closest and most trusted collaborator of Grawitz." Aside from the fact that a member of the SS who entered the organization only a few months before the National Socialist accession to power cannot be described as a very old member, the fact is not disputed that Poppendick joined the SS in 1932. But was he the closest and most trusted collaborator of Grawitz? In 1932 through a purely inner office-transfer in the SS, Poppendick came under the Reich Physicians Authority. After his return from the front in 1941, Poppendick, in addition to his main activity as doctor in the Sippenamt, became at the same time an occasional collaborator of Grawitz. This parallel activity in several capacities, during which the work with the Reich Physicians always remained the least important of all his activities, continued until 1945. Even the Prosecution has granted in its closing brief that the defendant's activities remained the same before and after the reorganization in 1943. It thus agrees with the defendant that despite the title "Chief of the Personal Office of the Reich Physicians SS and Police" Poppendick's main activity still took place in the Marriage Bureau of the SS, and that he was only incidentally Grawitz' occasional collaborator. The Prosecutor has said that the defendant called himself nothing more than Grawitz' messenger boy, this expression is certainly incorrect. But on the other hand, one cannot conclude simply from the defendant's rank in the SS that he must perforce have occupied a leading position in Grawitz' organization. The defendant owes his rank and his promotion only to his activities in The Race and Settlement Main Office, in which he was appointed leading physician in 1941.
Nothing proves this more conclusively than the recommendation for promotion, phrased in exaggerations, which Grawitz made in 1944 (NO-1120, Exhibit 544), in which he states, first of all, that the defendant joined the SS in 1931, although he realty joined in 1932, and in which also he places Poppendick's activities in The Pace and Settlement Main Office in the foreground and deals in hollow phrases with Poppendick's activities as Director of the Personal Office. The Prosecution themselves have said that the adjutant and the secretary were given the unimportant work to do - then what work remains for Poppendick to do, in view of the slight amount of work there was in Grawitz' staff?
Nothing shows better than the file notes of the letters sent out by Grawitz, in comparison to the respective periods of time, how few official letters were sent out by the Reich Physician. One may believe the Defendant when he says that Grawitz gave him this title, "Chief of the Personal Office", with the following words:
"I" (Grawitz) "shall continue to handle the small amount of mail together with my secretary. You" (Poppendick) "can go on about your business in the Pace and Settlement Main Office. I just want to keep this 'Personal Office' so that I can use it in some way later. But so that this office is not taken away from me, I have to have someone to whom I can give this title."
The secretary as well as the adjutant were with Grawitz all day, while Poppendick in general continued to work at the Marriage Office.
If Poppendick had really been the close and confidential associate of Grawitz and even, together with Gebhardt and Mrugowsky, as the Prosecution alleges, one of Grawitz' three most important associates, then why did Grawitz make him a Leading Physician in the Race and Settlement Main Office at all, although Grawitz knew very well that then he would not have Poppendick working for him any more? Why did Grawitz in 1942 call Dr. Wille back from the field for the post of Chief of Staff which he intended to set up, although Poppendick was in Germany and it certainly would not have been difficult for Grawitz to have, Poppendick released from his work with the Marriage Office of the SS?
Why did Grawitz only assign one clerk to him and the office of the Chief Dentist together, if Poppendick was really Grawitz' closest and most confidential associate?
Why did Poppendick not represent Grawitz whenever he went on an official trip or on leave? Why did he not make Poppendick his adjutant; then he would have had his alleged closest and most confidential associate with him daily.
Why did Grawitz give Poppendick no general authority to issue regulations or orders, which would have been binding on coordinate or subordinate offices? Why was this supposed most confidential associate only in a concentration camp for one hour once during the war?
Why did Poppendick never accompany the Reich Physician on official trips?
I could go on with these questions, indefinitely, in order to lead the idea of the Prosecution, which is not attested by a single document, ad absurdum. One would imagine, in the closest and most confidential associate of Grawitz a different position from the one which Poppendick held as occasional worker for Grawitz.
In no case, however, did the Defendant Poppendick - and herewith I come back briefly to the questions on Counts II and III of the Indictment - hold a position under Grawitz such that he could have prevented experiments which Himmler, for example, wanted to carry out, if he had learned of them in time.
If the Tribunal in Case II considers it impossible that a man like Field Marshal Milch had the power to prevent experiments of Luftwaffe medical officers, if he had had knowledge of these experiments in time, how then can one conceive the idea that an occasional associate of Grawitz, who worked in Grawitz' office only now and then, could have had influence on the execution or non-execution of any experiments which were ordered? The various descriptions of Grawitz' character all agree on one point -- that Grawitz didn't allow anybody to strike a bargain with him, foremost for fear of Himmler for whom he cherished a dog-like loyalty (The obedient dog retrieves the hare."
) and that not one of Grawitz' collaborators succeeded to obtain even a minor confidential position which he could have used to exercise a mitigating influence on the course of events. At the end of my trial brief I went into that whole comples at great length; I therefore can content myself with that short reference.
Within the framework of Count No. IV the membership of an organization declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal is not decisive alone, but, according to correct legalistic view, the additional requirement must exist that every individual accused member thereof must have had knowledge of or must have participated in crimes committed by this organization after 1939. It is the task of the Prosecution to prove their allegations (cf. my legal statements in my Closing Brief). The Prosecution certainly has taken on this task in our proceedings and they have tried to prove that the defendant had knowledge of certain criminal experiments. As far as I have stated my point up to now concerning the question of knowledge of criminal experiments, I have already dealt with it as far as it concerns the defendant Poppendick. I may, however, state once again that the hormone and Polygal experiments.are to be dismissed as non-criminal from the very start, in the sense of the indictment, and that it could not be proved that the defendant had ay knowledge whatsoever of criminal sterilazation, typhus, malaria, sea water and epidemic jaundice experiments, even if one reviews the evidence submitted with an utterly critical eye; that furthermore the knowledge of incendiary bomb, sulfonamid, phlegmone and freezing experiments could not be proved by the Prosecution beyond the shadow of reasonable doubt.
Particularly with a view to the experiments named just now it will be left to the judgment of the Tribunal whether or not a knowledge on the part of the defendant Poppendick of these experiments can be deduced, beyond certain vague assumptions and without the firm basis of undisputable facts, once one has arrived at the conclusion that these last named experiments have really been criminal.
Should the Tribunal be convinced that the evidence submitted is sufficient to deem the defendant guilty under Count No. IV, then I think it advisable to refer to my written statements about the scope of the punishment to be meted out. The judgment of the International Military Tribunal has given a certain guidance for future proceedings against members of criminal organizations concerning the measure of punishment. I quote:
"The Tribunal recommends that the punishment meted out to members of an organization declared criminal by the Tribunal on the basis of Law No. 10 should in no case be higher than stipulated by the Denazification Law for the American Zone, Nobody is to be punished according to both laws."
An over-all regulation of the problem even by precedent, has not been made yet in the American Zone, whilst in the Nritish Zone it has been regulated by law in the sense of the recommendation quoted above. This Honorable Tribunal will then be the first of the Military Tribunal in Nurnberg to judge members of criminal organizations and thereby create a precedent for future cases.
If at the conclusion of my speech which briefly summarized the result of the evidence against the defendant Poppendick I may turn to the Tribunal I do so only with the knowledge that the High Tribunal will carefully scrutinize the evidence which has so assidously been submitted and will decide about guilt or innocence of the accused without favor.
In this sense I plead for a just judgment of the defendant Helmut Poppendick whom I represent.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now hear from counsel for the defendant, Rose?
DR. FRITZ: For the defendant Rose:
Mr. President, Your Honors:
In my opening address, which I had the honor to deliver before you on 30 January 1947, I did express the hope, that the evidence might prove that the defendant Rose neither took a part in the planning nor in the performance of the medical experiments which are under indictment. Now after the closing of evidence, you, Your Honors, will have to examine and to decide whether my hope has been fulfilled. Before you retire to consider the verdict, I wish to say to you that I do not think I was wrong in the conviction then expressed, and that for the following reasons:
1) As far as the allegation is concerned that my client took part in a conspiracy for the commital of war crimes and crimes against humanity, I have explained in the closing brief which I submitted on behalf of the defendant Rose, why my client could not have had a part in such conspiracy for reasons of law and of facts.
Concerning the meetings of the consulting physicians which Mr. Mc Haney considers as typical meetings of conspirators, I did write:
The participation of the defendant ROSE himself at the consultant conferences is shown clearly in his printed lectures lying before us and his remarks during the discussions at these conferences. From them it is quite clear that the activity of the defendant ROSE at these conferences was purely scientific and in no way objectionable.
To this must be added that, after DING'S lecture at the third consultants conference in the year 1943, in which the latter reported concerning his experiments on human beings in the concentration camp of Buchenwald, Professor ROSE protested publicly against the undertaking of ush experiments, as fact which I shall have to go into more closely later on. This uncontested fact is not in any way in keeping with the behaviour of a conspirator.
Furthermore the lecture which the defendant ROSE delivered on 17 February 1944 - in wartime therefore - in Switzerland to the medical association at Basle speaks against his participation in the alleged conspiracy.
In this lecture he reported not only concerning his own DDT - research, but discussed also, among other things, the typhus experiments carried out on human beings in Buchenwald by Ding. This lecture, which caused a stir in medical circles abroad, both in neutral and hostile countries, and a further lecture on the same subject, which he delivered in Turkey in the summer of 1944 - also in war time - are the best proof that Professor ROSE was aiming in his work at helping the whole of mankind - without distinction between friend or enemy - in the combating of epidemics. Thus for instance the manuscript of his Basle lecture was immediately, with his consent, put by the Swiss at the disposal of the international Red Cross and, through this, at the disposal of the medical service of the allies, so that the experiences mentioned in it encountered in combating typhus and malaria should benefit all without distinction. Here it is clearly shown that Professor ROSE acted, not as a conspirator, but as a free doctor and scientist, which might almost have led to criminal proceedings being instituted against him for reason.
At all events it is seen both from my previous detailed arguments as also from those which I still have to deliver when speaking of the malaria and typhus experiments, that the defendant ROSE in no case belonged to the plotters. But one who is said to belong to the group of conspirators must surely have a share in the plot. For in the case of conspiracy surely only he should answer fully for the actions of others who - even if only in a subordinate position has taken part in the formation of the plot. From this, however, it must be concluded that whoever does not take part at all in the shaping of a common plan, can also not hear full responsibility for what others have done. Thus if proof is lacking that someone has taken part in a common planning, then too it cannot be established either that he had a share in the alleged conspiracy.
For there must be a limit to collective responsibility. I am of the opinion that the common plan just formes this limit-Whoever does not belong to the planners does not belong either to the group of conspirators.
The Prosecution wants to hold my client responsible for the malaria experiments of Dr. Schilling in Dachau. My point is primarily that you, Your Honors, for technical reasons alone are unable to examine all of the essential material.
In the indictment no charges to this effect are raised against Professor Rose. He has not been indicted at all for this matter. It is not enough for the Prosecution to have made an oral accusation against my client in the course of the trial. Only a new indictment could form the basis for a material decision. In the event the High Tribunal should not believe this phase of the law, I shall in my closing brief turn to the question as to whether the supplying of the serums for tropical diseases constituted a participation in this research. I have among other things stated:
The Tribunal will have to decide whether these above mentioned activities of the Department of Tropical Diseases of the Robert Koch Institute under the management of the defendant ROSE or his own activities constitute participation in the meaning of the Penal Code in the accounts of Professor SCHILLING on the part of the defendant ROSE. In my opinion this decision can only be a negative one, for the following reasons:
The delivery of material necessary for malaria research such as Anopheles eggs and malaria cultures was one of the official duties of the Department for Tropical Diseases of the Robert Koch Institute. This Department has a section which dealt exclusively with these matters. This can be seen from both the yearly reports of the Robert Koch Institute and from the report covering the third conference EAST of consulting specialists discussing work projects.
(dritter Arbeitstagung Ost der Beratenden Facharzte). Deliveries of this kind are internationally common practice and were never denied by the defendant ROSE. It is also common practice to use the organs of human corpses for the carrying out of scientific research. The supposition for such deliveries are, that they are requested either by well known institutes or by renounced research scientists. It cannot be denied, that SCHILLING, a co-worker of Robert Koch and a member of the malaria commission of the league of Nations, was famous as a malaria research scientist. In a case of this kind the non-delivery of such material would have been an express violation of traditional practice and of official duty. It is also not international usage for the orderer to be questioned about the intended use of the material before its delivery.
Concerning the question as to whether my client should have certain misgivings to give the material to Schilling, I state that the defendant Rose himself is a well known malaria research scientist. Malaria research was the main study of his department at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and also later in Pfafferode. Professor Rose as an experienced malaria scientist knew of course that this form of malaria is not a dangerous one and that no complications are to be expected from it.
"I formed the opinion that the experimental work carried out by Dr. SCHILLING was in rather a different category from the majority of experiments which have been described in the trials at Nurnberg and elsewhere. It appears that this investigations were carried out carefully and with a reasonable regard to the safety of the subjects. As he was working with benign tertian malaria the allegation that three hundred people died in the course of the experiments is obvious ly grotesquely untrue."
Thus, Your Honors, the famous Entomologist, Professor Kenneth Mellanby at the famous Hygiene Tropical Institute in London wrote me a letter dated 9 July 1947 after the close of the evidence. He stayed in Nurnberg a week during this trial. Rose's special field is, as you know, malaria research, and regarding it's concept and method of research, I said in my closing nrief that Rose personally was the prototype of a worker above reproach in the field of malaria research and with regard to his car for the well-being of his malaria patients, as shown by the investigations undertaken by the competent American authorities. He risked his own life, in order to assure the orderly handing over of his Malaria Research Institute in pfafferode to the Americans - and also to insure continued regular care and medical treatment for his patients. It would be completely incomprehensible if such a man were to be made responsible for the technican errors and negligence of another who was not even under his influence.
In the Indictment my client is charged with responsibility for the typhus experiments of Professor Haagen and with participation in them.
In order to reach a decision concerning the question whether a punishable behavior on the part of the defendant Rose is established, the court will have to examine the following:
1) Whether Professor Rose, in his capacity as consulting hygienist with the Medical Inspection of the Luftwaffe, had any commanding authority or the right and obligation of supervision at all over Professor Eugen Haagen, at the University of Strassbourg and
2) Whether the defendant Rose was a participant in the experiments with typhus vaccine conducted by Haagen in the concentration camps at Natzweiler and Schirmeck in a penally relevant form, in which case it can be left completely undecided whether Haagen himself liable to punishment or not.
In my closing brief and in my written reply to the closing brief of the Prosecution I have examined this question carefully and especially in regard to the exchange of correspondence between Haagen and Rose. Because of the lack of time it is completely impossible within the frame work of this plea to explain these difficult questions. I, therefore, resist from doing so but shall at least say this.
In my opinion it is absolutely impossible, according to the evidence submitted in this direction, to arrive in our trial at a decision which would eliminate all mistakes. The questions under examination which were raised by the actual course of events as well as by their connection with medical problems, are so complicated that at this juncture they simply cannot be decided by medically untrained jurists without the expert opinion of a suitable and non partisan medical expert.