Israel Medical Association Journal

Recent publications based on newly available list of surgeries performed in Nazi concentration camps raised the question of motivation for thousands of procedures on internees incarcerated from occupied Europe. The performance of major surgeries would be suspicious in their intent, indicating, if not directly proving, their intention as an exercise for junior physicians or medical students. The concept of the Revier (infirmary) is discussed. The Revier (also known as Krankenrevier or infirmary) in Nazi concentrations camps was located next to the extermination unit. Procedures performed at the Revier were considered non-therapeutic, as the victims had a minimal chance of survival without appropriate postoperative facilities. A review of medical documents of major concentration camps (Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Gusen, Ebensee) indicates the criminal intention of the authorities. This unusual type of crime was raised in post-war trials, but no specific legal code was nominated.

The Nazi regime occupying Europe during World War II built a series of concentration camps for those opposing the regime, political and criminal adversaries, and eventually victims of the racial, Aryan policy. It was the suggestion of Germany's elite physician to the Schutzstaffel (SS), Reichfuehrer H.H. (Heinrich Luitpold Himmler), to use the available workforce in the camps, before their eventual liquidation [2,3]. What was the outcome?

The SS medical services in the Auschwitz concentration camp functioned based on two mutually exclusive principles. On the one hand, medical care was provided for the SS staff, and on the other hand, prisoners with contagious diseases or in the terminal stages of exhaustion were eliminated.

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory illness with broad spectrum of clinical manifestations ranging from asymptomatic cases to severe complications such as acute respiratory failure, multi-organ dysfunction, and death.

Objectives: To evaluate the platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) as a marker of disease severity and mortality in COVID-19 patients. To explore the relationship between PLR and other inflammatory indicators, specifically C-reactive protein (CRP) and neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR).

Methods: The cohort included 400 patients (206 males, 194 females; mean age: 64.5 ± 17.1 years [range 20–100 years]) who were hospitalized between April 2020 and December 2021. Data were collected on demographic and clinical characteristics, including ward and critical care details. CRP, NLR, and PLR values were recorded on the first and last days of hospitalization. Patients were categorized based on their hospitalization outcomes.

Results: PLR statistically increased during hospitalization, from 245 ± 160 at admission to 341 ± 747 at discharge (P < 0.001). A significant association was found between PLR and both the length of hospital stay and mortality. The mean PLR in the deceased group was 445 ± 590, compared to 304 ± 795 in the survivors, P = 0.007. This finding showed a correlation between higher PLR and increased severity and mortality.

Conclusion: PLR has been identified as a relevant marker for assessing the severity of COVID-19. Elevated PLR levels are associated with cytokine storm, length of hospital stay, and mortality. The results highlight the relationship between elevated PLR and poor outcome in COVID‐19 patients, suggesting its use in monitoring disease progression and prognosis.

On 9 August 1938, prisoners from Dachau concentration camp near Munich were sent to the town of Mauthausen in Austria to begin building a new camp. The site was chosen because of the nearby granite quarry and its proximity to Linz [1,2].

Mauthausen initially served as a prison camp for common criminals, prostitutes, and other categories of incorrigible law offenders. However, on 8 May 1939, it was converted to a labor camp. Later, Mauthausen KL became a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, approximately 20 kilometers from Linz. It was complemented with dozens of subcamps in the surrounding areas.

Letter 1: "Not type 2" by Moti Ravid 

Letter 2: "Hyponatremia, hyperkalemia, and acute kidney injury: clues for the diagnosis of uroperitoneum in patients with new-onset ascites" by Zvi Ackerman and Samuel N. Heyman, 

Letter 3: "Surgery in Mauthausen Concentration Camp" by George M. Weisz

In the last hundred years, the science of fracture repair has significantly changed. Management has moved from a simple metabolic and hormonal concept of bone regeneration to an inflammatory concept and now to a more complicated immunological description. Fracture repair has been considered age-dependent and related to diabetes, nutrition, hormone connection, autoimmune diseases, rheumatic arthritis, and nicotine. Recently a new branch of medicine, osteoimmunology, which deals with the mechanism of fracture repair, has been introduced.

The concept of starvation osteopathy is an old and an investigated one, which is well established in many ways. Studies were conducted on famine survivors during World War I, in the Ukraine in the early 1930s, throughout Europe during World War II, and in Asia and Africa soon after. However, the main topic of this article is the effect of starvation inflicted during the Holocaust.

Takotsubo syndrome (TTS) or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TCM) is a cardiomyopathy that develops rapidly and is usually caused by mental or physical stress. It is usually a transient cardiomyopathy. The presumed cause of the onset of the syndrome is the increase and extreme secretion of adrenaline and norepinephrine due to extreme stress. An infectious disease such as sepsis can also be the cause [1].

One of the most widespread diagnostic tools is the revised version of Mayo Clinic Diagnostic Criteria for TTS (2008) [2], which incorporates transient wall-motion abnormalities, absence of a potential coronary culprit, myocarditis, and pheochromocytoma. The prognosis for TTS is usually favorable and resolves with complete recovery in 4–8 weeks in more than 90% of patients.

A dramatic portrait bust of the physician Gabriele da Fonseca (1586? to 1668) at prayer is considered by art historians to be one of the finest late works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), the preeminent sculptor of 17th century Rome. This statue is of medical as well as artistic interest. First, Fonseca is shown wearing his physician’s robe, thus celebrating his successful career as a leading medical figure in Rome, holding both Papal and university appointments at the highest level. In addition, the positioning of the statue in a special chapel designed by Bernini highlights Fonseca’s role as an influential participant in the introduction of quinine into Europe as a cure for malaria. Last, an examination of the statue’s hands identifies a number of pathologies and anatomical anomalies that raise interesting questions, regrettably unanswerable given the information presently available, concerning Fonseca’s illnesses and cause of death.

There are numerous experimental studies on the effect of immune modulation on the skeleton but few clinical ones.

In this letter, we supplement the previous information on enhanced bone healing. A new branch of medicine, osteoimmunology, describes fracture healing as an active immune system process evolving in a cascade of repairs.

Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is a heterogeneous primary immune deficiency disorder characterized mainly by defective B lymphocyte differentiation, leading to hypogammaglobinemia and defective antibody production. It is often combined with cellular immune defects. A minority of patients present during childhood and adolescence. Infections are most often sinopulmonary but can affect any system. The noninfectious complications include progressive lung disease, autoimmunity, gastrointestinal inflammatory disease, liver disease, granulomatous disease, lymphoid hyperplasia and infiltrative disease, and the development of lymphoma and other cancers. In addition to recurrent infections and bronchiectasis, patients may develop chronic interstitial lung disease, granulomatous lung disease, lymphoma, and pulmonary hypertension.

A review of the literature on the effect of immune modulation on the skeleton shows disappointing results.

The health of survivors of the Shoah has been investigated, both at early and late stages in their lives. There have been findings of multiple morbidities, but survivors have enjoyed slightly prolonged longevity when compared to the general population [1]. Less attention has been granted to investigations and descriptions of illnesses that presented inside the ghettos and the Nazi camps. Some of the surviving records from those sites have yet to be interpreted. Documented diagnoses of both insulin dependent and mature onset diabetes mellitus and of malignancy has been conspicuously absent. We present our meta-analysis and interpretations of surviving medical documents covering a large population of prisoners from a range of ghettos and concentration camps and specifically note the absence of recorded incidence of malignancy and a relatively low incidence of diabetes mellitus.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in more than four million deaths globally. In addition to the lower respiratory system, a wide range of major organ injuries have been reported among patients infected with COVID-19. These injuries include cardiac involvement. The spectrum of cardiac manifestations includes cardiac injury, heart failure, cardiogenic shock, acute coronary syndrome, myocarditis, tachyarrhythmias, and bradyarrhythmia [1]. Different degrees of atrioventricular blocks have been reported [2].

The pathogenesis of these complications is not fully understood. Differentmechanisms are proposed, including direct myocyte injury, interstitial inflammation and fibrosis, cytokine storm, plaque destabilization, and and/or hypoxia [3]. Many countries have worked toward mass vaccination using the Pfizer BioNTech (BNT162b2) COVID-19 vaccine, including Israel. We report a case of high degree atrioventricular block (AVB) following vaccination with the COVID-19 BNT162b2 vaccine.

Extermination via starvation was described in detail as an alternative or precursor to the final solution during the Holocaust in World War II. The main causes of death in the ghettos were exhaustion, environmental conditions (inadequate protection in extreme climates), infectious diseases, or starvation. In previous studies on the Lodz Ghetto, the causes of death via typhus exantematicus, tuberculosis, and heart failure were investigated [1,2]. In this article, we introduce the topic of diabetes in the presence of starvation and assess the incidence of malignancies in the years 1941–1944. The findings from the Lodz Ghetto would retroactively support the Warburg theory