April 7 | Alexander Bogdanov

August 22, 1873, - April 7, 1928: Age 54

Alexander Bogdanov was a Russian physician and polymath who wrote science fiction books, philosophized, wrote about economics, and believed that blood transfusions could extend life and rejuvenate health.

His experiments seemed so successful that, upon Lenin's death, he was commissioned to resuscitate his body, however he was unsuccessful. He wrote, however, to Stalin of his dreams of rejunvenating the Boshevik party leadership.

In March of 1928, a group of students volunteered to take part in blood exchanges to help them study more energetically for exams. L. I. Koldomasiv, who had inactive tuberculosis and malaria, was ruled out for medical reasons, but Bogdanov contacted him and proposed a mutual blood exchange, with the idea that as a middle-aged doctor he would be immune to tuberculosis. Both hoped that Bogdanov's immunity could be transferred. They exchanged nearly one litre of blood.

Both had reactions; Koldomasov survived and his lung lesions cleared. He was reportedly still alive in 1983 at age 76. Bogdanov had chills and fever, intestinal distress, hemolysis and oliguria, then jaundice. He died on 7 April 1928.

Sources: Wikipedia, Science Fiction Studies (review 1987), The Struggle for Viability

February 7 | Josef Mengele

March 16, 1911 - February 7, 1979: Age 67

Mengele was the notorious physician at the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was among the physicians who supervised the selection of prisoners arriving, deciding who would die quickly, who would be a slave, and who would be selected for human experiments. He was known as the "Angel of Death" ("Mengele" contains "Engel", the german word for "angel". He used his work at Auschwitz to continue his research on heredity, and had a special interest in twins, trying to prove that various diseases were caused by racial inferiority. Those selected for "special work detail" with Mengele were better housed and fed than the others, and temporarily safe from the gas chambers, but most of his victims died due to the experiments he performed or of later infections. According to his assistant/slave, a prisoner with a medical degree and was an experienced pathologist, Mengele simply did not consider his subjects to be fellow human beings.

At the end of the war he was captured by Americans, but gave his name as "Fritz Hollman" and worked as a farmhand. Eventually a friend helped him escape to Argentina, where he worked as a construction worker. Soon he came into contact with influential German expatriates there and began to enjoy a good life. By 1960, however, fear of capture drove him to Paraguay just a few weeks before the Israeli Mossad captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and took him to Jerusalem for trial as a war criminal. They had intended to capture Mengele as well, but he had already fled. Run by a dictator of German heritage (Alfredo Stroessner), Paraguay was safer.

He was already infected, however, with a sense of anxiety, and this anxiety haunted him for the rest of his life. He crossed into Brazil and went into hiding under an assumed name, living with a Neo-Nazi admirer there. He moved out into the country and worked as a manager of a farm. His mental state deteriorated; he became depressed, angry, and self-centred. Always fearing capture, he rejected a proposal to relocate in Bolivia in 1974 and moved instead to a bungalow in a suburb of São Paolo, where his son Rolf visited him in 1977. According to his son (who was anti-Nazi and had never known his father), Mengele was unrepentant, claiming he "had never personally harmed anyone in his whole life."

His health deteriorated, Mengele died two years later while swimming in the sea. He either drowned accidentally or as a result of a stroke. He was buried under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", the identity he had used since 1976.

He did manage to elude his enemies, at least the external ones. In 1985 police found evidence of his hiding place and death at the house of one of his friends in Germany. His body was exhumed in 1985 and positively identified by forensic experts. Later, in 1992, a DNA test confirmed the identification beyond a doubt.

Sources: Wikipedia, Mengele: The Complete Story

January 13 | Harold Shipman

January 14, 1946 - January 13, 2004: Age 57

Dr. Harold Shipman was one of the most successful serial killers in history. He was an English doctor who dispatched an estimated 250 of his patients by giving them overdoses of heroin, and then forging medical records to make it seem they were already in poor health.

In 1998, a colleague became uneasy at the number of cremation forms he was asking her to countersign. She felt sure that he was somehow killing his patients, but she didn't know how, so she approached the district coroner with her suspicions. An initial police enquiry did not produce enough evidence for charges. A few months later he killed a woman for whom, bizarrely, he produced a will cutting out her own children and leaving a tidy sum to him. Her daughter went to the police, who had the dead woman's body exhumed: it showed traces of heroin. When Shipman was arrested it emerged that his own personal typewriter was used to make the fake will.

In January 2000 he was convicted of killing 15 of his patients; a further inquiry after he was sentenced to prison for life concluded that he was probably responsible for about 250 deaths, including that of a four-year-old girl. Because he was usually the only doctor to sign the death certificates, and because many of the patients were cremated, it would be difficult to know for certain. He never spoke about his actions and although in one case there was a will, in most of the other cases there was no clear motive. He did steal jewelry from some of his victims, but not systematically.

On January 13, 2004, Harold Shipman was found dead in his cell, hanged using bed sheets tied to the window bars of his cell. He had told his probation officer that he was considering suicide so that his wife could receive a pension; she would not have been entitled to one if he had died after the age of 60. January 14, 2004 would have been his 58th birthday.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Sun

November 11 | Julien Offray de La Mettrie

December 25, 1709 - November 11, 1751: Age 41

Julien Offray de La Mettrie was one of the first influential scientists to notice the link between mind and body, and to interpret that link, not as evidence of the "power of spirit", but as evidence that physical phenomena were to be accounted for as the effects of organic changes in the brain and nervous system. Trained as a physician, he played out what were for him the logical conclusions to this reasoning: that the meaning of life can be found in sensory pleasure, and that virtue is a form of self-love. He also publicly stated his case for atheism.

His views were so controversial that he had to move to a new country several times to avoid the possible violent consequences of the public ill-feeling he aroused. He was welcome, however, in the court of Frederick the Great. There he cured the French ambassador of an illness and the ambassador, in gratitude, threw a great feast for him. At the feast, de La Mettrie consumed a large quantity of paté aux truffes and, as a result, developed a fever, became delirious, and died.

"When death comes, the farce is over, therefore let us take our pleasure while we can."

Source: Wikipedia