Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1901 — Torture Stations. [ARTICLE]

Torture Stations.

Speaking of capital punishment, a writer in the American Journal of Sociology declares that the killing of criminals does not beneAt society, while life imprisonment merely lays an extra burden on the public. By way of making the punishment for murder fit the crime he urges that every condemned murderer should be turned over to the doctors to be experimented upon until he dies. In support of this proposition the writer makes a long and serious argument. Among other things, he shows how many hundreds of thousands of people are dying annually of diseases which might be cured if the scientsts had a human experiment station where they could cry all sorts of proposed remedies. It does not answer the purpose to try new medicine upon animals, and the idea of being experimented upon is not popular among patients. Here is the opportunity, says the writer, for making the condemned murderer repay a part of the debt that he owes to society. Let him be experimented upon with new serums and potions until he dies.