Would you volunteer to catch malaria to help win WWII? These Illinois prisoners did

Nathan Leopold’s Role in Stateville’s Malaria Prison Experiments

In 1944, as malaria killed more U.S. troops than bullets in the Pacific, University of Chicago doctors turned to Stateville Prison for test subjects.

Over 400 inmates got ten mosquito bites each, then new drugs to see what worked.

Nathan Leopold, the famed “thrill killer,” not only got sick but also ran much of the lab work. He cut open mosquitoes, tracked fevers, and signed up other prisoners.

The tests caused pain so bad that men felt their heads might “split open” Yet they went on for thirty years, even after being compared to Nazi experiments.

The old prison hospital at Stateville still stands as a stark reminder of this dark chapter in American medical history.

Malaria Became America’s Secret Weapon Against Japanese Forces

The U.S. Army had a surprise enemy in the Pacific during World War II. Malaria knocked out more American soldiers than Japanese bullets.

In March 1944, the military and State Department funded a rush program to create new malaria drugs. They turned to American prisons for test subjects.

About 800 inmates in Atlanta, New Jersey, and Illinois joined these experiments. The University of Chicago picked Stateville Prison as their main test site.

Dr. Alf Alving, a kidney doctor with little malaria background, ran these human trials.

Ten Mosquito Bites Per Prisoner Started The First Experiment

Doctors held their first “Bite Day” on March 8, 1944. They gave 432 Stateville prisoners the most dangerous type of malaria.

Each man got exactly ten mosquito bites under strict controls. The medical team put tiny tube cages against each prisoner’s skin.

The process lasted until 3 a. m., with most doctors leaving early. Just one doctor finished the job with help from an unlikely helper: convicted killer Nathan Leopold.

The team used the Chesson strain of malaria, taken from a sick soldier from the Pacific.

A Famous Murderer Found His Calling In Medical Research

Prison staff moved Nathan Leopold from his X-ray job to meet Dr. Alving in 1944.

Leopold, serving life for his part in the famous 1924 Leopold and Loeb murder, took great interest in the malaria studies.

He first joined as a test subject, then took many other roles. He signed up other prisoners, watched tests, worked X-ray machines, and cut up mosquitoes.

Leopold became key to the research, sometimes controlling the flow of information and resources the experiments needed.

Prisoners Learned To Extract Malaria From Mosquito Spit

The research team gave prisoners malaria either through mosquito bites or by shooting mosquito spit into them.

Leopold learned to carefully cut open infected mosquitoes under microscopes, taking out their tiny spit glands for study.

For all test subjects, researchers checked the mosquitoes to see how strong the infection would be. Dr. Alving taught inmates how to use microscopes and give drug shots.

All mosquitoes carried a specific malaria type from a sick soldier.

Headaches Felt Like Your Skull Might Split Open

Leopold later said the malaria headaches were “unlike any other headache in the world. You think from moment to moment that your head is going to split, and you wish to gosh it would!”

Many inmates got fevers up to 106 degrees.

Leopold caught malaria himself and spent a week very sick, with several flare-ups in later months.

The prisoners watched each other, gave the drugs, and cared for each other during the worst fever spikes.

They got paid $25-100 per trial, worth about $460-1,860 today.

Scientists Tested New Drugs On Hundreds Of Willing Inmates

About 200 prisoners joined the experiments during each two-year stretch.

The researchers mainly tested drugs called 8-aminoquinolines, including the first human tests of a drug called primaquine.

Dr. Alving tried a medicine called SN-7618 on his subjects, testing different amounts to find what worked best. SN-7618 beat malaria with few side effects.

After the war, scientists renamed this drug chloroquine, and it became key in the World Health Organization’s global fight against malaria.

Heart Problems Plagued Many Test Subjects

The prisoners struggled to help each other when the drugs caused heart attacks. One inmate died during the tests, though officials claimed natural causes killed him.

Leopold himself had two heart attacks while working on the malaria project. He later died of heart failure in 1974. Many other inmates got heart problems after joining the tests.

Nobody ever did a long-term study on the Stateville prisoners to check what lasting harm these test drugs might have caused.

Nazi Lawyers Pointed To Stateville During War Crime Trials

The experiments stirred up trouble in 1946.

During the Nuremberg trials, Nazi defense lawyers brought up the Chicago studies to justify their own medical tests on camp prisoners.

The court asked Dr. Andrew Ivy to explain the difference between Nazi malaria tests at Dachau and the Stateville studies.

He pointed out that Nazi experiments killed many more people and never got proper consent from prisoners.

The Nuremberg Code set rules that the Stateville experiments clearly broke.

Black Inmates Got Less Pay For Riskier Tests

Black prisoners at Stateville joined the malaria experiments in 1950, but for a different reason than earlier white subjects.

Researchers wanted to learn why malaria drugs caused dangerous reactions.

They found that about 10% of African American subjects had acute hemolytic reactions. This meant the drug destroyed their red blood cells too fast.

The team studied at least 80 “primaquine-sensitive” inmates. Records show Black participants got less money than white participants in the original malaria study.

A Genetic Discovery Changed Modern Medicine

Dr. Alving’s team made a breakthrough in 1956.

They found that primaquine sensitivity happened because some people couldn’t make enough of an enzyme called G6PD.

Lab work showed that low G6PD activity in red blood cells caused the dangerous reactions. Genetic tests proved that G6PD problems passed down as an X-linked trait.

This finding helped create the field of pharmacogenetics, which studies how genes affect drug responses. It built the foundation for today’s precision medicine approaches.

Prison Experiments Finally Stopped After Three Decades

The University of Chicago malaria study ran until the mid-1970s when the U.S. government banned using prisoners for medical experiments.

Modern doctors now routinely give genetic tests before prescribing certain drugs to reduce the risk of dangerous reactions. This practice comes directly from what researchers learned from Black test subjects at Stateville.

While the experiments produced many scientific papers, they had surprisingly little long-term impact on how doctors treat malaria.

Visiting Stateville Correctional Center, Illinois

Stateville Correctional Center right now to learn about the controversial malaria experiments that infected over 400 prisoners between 1944 and 1975.

The facility at 16830 South Broadway Street in Joliet is closed for demolition and rebuilding as of 2024.

There are no public tours or historical exhibits available.

Only the Northern Reception and Classification Center remains open for official prison visits with advance approval through the Illinois Department of Corrections website.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• The “world’s most perfect town” that hid America’s cruelest company
• The Christmas fire that killed 21 Chicago firefighters in one collapse
• How fear of a Black general sparked Charles Young’s epic protest