Grade and Section: XII STEM-RCM 

Group Number: 6 

Group Members: Erich Penson 

                               Jorine Corpuz 

                               Ma. Theresa Buen 

                               John Russel Basbas  

The Prison Doctor Who Did Testicular Transplants 

From 1913 to 1951, eugenicist Leo Stanley served as San Quentin State Prison's top doctor. He started

performing vasectomies on inmates and transplanting the testicles of younger men into those who were older

because he thought that aging and decreasing hormones related to criminality, a lack of morals, and poor

physical characteristics. He had performed 10,000 gland rejuvenation procedures on prisoners, fellow medical

professionals, and occasionally a civilian over his nearly 40 years as a San Quentin doctor. Instead than viewing

inmates as a psychologically unstable group likely to participate in human experiments in exchange for better

treatment or due to their propensity for self-destruction, he saw them as an inexhaustible supply of test subjects. 

 He started utilizing animal testicles, such as those from goats and deer, which he crushed into a paste and

injected into inmates' abdomens when he ran out of supply. By the time Stanley left San Quentin, he had

performed roughly 10,000 testicular operations. 

Stanley was certain that his research would reduce crime, revive elderly men, and prevent inappropriate people

from having children. In the modern state, when the lines between punishment, rehabilitation, and study were

blurred, his medical practice revealed a darker side to social hygiene.  

ETHICAL MISCONDUCT: 

In this research study, Leo Stanley broke several research ethics and conducted an unethical clinical trial.

During this research study, Many volunteers assumed it would enhance their health – Stanley claimed
vasectomies would prevent some sexually transmitted illnesses, which they do not and possibly boost their

libido. 

He also started utilizing animal testicles, such as those from goats and deer, which he crushed into a paste and

injected into inmates’ abdomens when he ran out of supply that caused their health to deteriorate dangerously. 

REFERENCE:  

                          Futterman, A. (2021, January 11) 5 Unethical Medical Experiments Brought Out of the

Shadows of History. Discover Magazine. 

REFLECTION: 

Numerous things were done in the past that would be considered violations of the Human Rights Act presently.

While there was no legal standard that would prevent individuals from performing such things, they believed

those things were humane, justified, and revolutionary. In reality, it was horrifying and just sick. 

It was sickening to know that a doctor would experiment on a corpse, cut out his parts, and put them on another

person’s body. It would be acceptable if the organ was used to focus on saving somebody else’s life, such as a

heart, liver, or kidney, but it wasn’t. 

People, regardless of how poorly they behaved, were not deserving of being experimented on by a doctor just to

prove that he was outstanding in his profession. Prison systems exist as a means of repression for lawbreakers,

and death sentences and life without parole have also been used as punitive actions; thus, such actions were not

needed to further punish those people deprived of liberty. It was wrong to open up to someone without his

family’s consent and use their body for the experiment. 

Using people as experimental subjects, regardless of whether they were willing or not, was not humane. The

practice was not ethical, professional, or reasonable. Irrespective of how we’d like our world to progress and

have solutions and treatments for every health issue, it would be wrong to be using living things, regardless of

their pasts, as test subjects to investigate the effectiveness of an experiment, just as we campaign to cease

utilizing defenseless creatures as test subjects for various things presently.