The (Un)Ethical History of Anatomy

Sabine Hildebrandt is an associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of General Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, and a lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She teaches anatomy and history of anatomy at Harvard Medical School and Harvard College. Her research interests are the history and ethics of anatomy, and specifically the history of anatomy in National Socialist Germany. Her educational approach integrates anatomy, medical history and medical ethics.

Her book “The Anatomy of Murder: Ethical Transgressions and Anatomical Science during the Third Reich” was published by Berghahn Books in January 2016, in paperback in August 2017, and is the first systematic study of anatomy during National Socialism. The biography of Jewish physician refugee Käthe Beutler was published by Hentrich & Hentrich in 2019. She is currently researching the history of the Anatomical Institute as a member of the Historical Commission on the Reichsuniversität Strassburg 1941-44. She is also co-editor of “Recognizing the Past in the Present: Medicine before, during and after the Holocaust” to be published by Berghahn Books in 2021.