Mental-Suggestion Experiments

In Vienna, Eugen Steinach pioneers 'rejuvenation' by vasectomy and gland surgery, part of the interwar craze that Voronoff will carry to celebrity. By 1925 Nature and JAMA treat the two men as one phenomenon; the year 1912 is the one usually given and is not verified here.

Mikhail Bulgakov's satire, a dog surgically turned into a monstrous man, captures the era's fascination and dread over experiments that blur the human boundary.

Inheriting Bekhterev's programme, Leonid Vasiliev begins rigorous experiments in 'mental suggestion at a distance' in Leningrad, using hypnosis and electromagnetic shielding.

Vasiliev begins systematic experiments in mental suggestion at a distance, using hypnosis and electromagnetic shielding.

In February 1939 the NKVD moves Mairanovsky's poison research into its 4th Special Section, systematizing lethal experiments on condemned prisoners. The often quoted date of 20 February rests on Birstein, not on a file reference.

The reputed overlord of the poison laboratory and the sharashka is arrested after Stalin's death and shot in December; the poison tests on condemned prisoners form a separate charge in his trial.

Interrogated on 27 August 1953, Mairanovsky states that Beria approved his proposal and had him test poisons on condemned prisoners. A protocol of a Beria interrogation for 28 August 1953 could not be verified, and the accounts of what he said that day disagree. He is shot in December.