The Leopard Lily Project: A Story of Nazi Pseudoscience

This book tells the bewildering tale of one of the most insidious, yet almost forgotten crimes against humanity planned by the Nazis during the Third Reich. Soon after taking power in 1933, the Nazis introduced a program of involuntary sterilization of those German citizens who they considered unworthy of reproduction. These were predominantly, but not exclusively, people afflicted with hereditary diseases. Doctors were required to register with newly established health courts every known case of hereditary illness, including genetic blindness and deafness, manic depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy, congenital feeble-mindedness, Huntington’s chorea, and alcoholism. Common sterilization methods at the time required long recovery periods and often resulted in death, so when an Austrian dermatologist wrote to Himmler proposing that sterilization of 3 million Bolsheviks could be carried out with the South American plant Leopard Lily (dieffenbachia seguine seguinum, or dumb bane), Himmler, who was easily impressed by quacks, had his interest piqued. To connect the various strands of this complex story, this book explores Nazi ideology, their fascination with alternative medicine, particularly herbal medicine, and Himmler and his inclination towards pseudoscience, as well as other key individuals. Anyone with an interest in alternative medicine and pseudoscience, medical ethics, the history of medicine, or the Nazi regime will learn much from this previously untold story.

Edzard Ernst was born in 1948 and received his education in Germany and the United States. He studied psychology and medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, qualifying as a physician in 1977 and completing both his MD and PhD degrees there.

He subsequently served as Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) at Hannover Medical School in Germany and later as Head of the PMR Department at the University of Vienna in Austria. In 1993, he joined the University of Exeter, where he established the world’s first Chair in Complementary Medicine. Since 2012, he has been Emeritus Professor at the University of Exeter and currently resides in Cambridge, UK, and Brittany, France.

Ernst is the founder and former Editor‑in‑Chief of three medical journals―Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies, European Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Perfusion. He has been a columnist for numerous publications, including the BMJ, The Guardian, The Independent, The Spectator, Skeptic Magazine, L’Express, Der Spiegel, Die Welt, and Der Standard. His work has been recognized with 17 scientific awards, most recently the John Maddox Prize (2015) and the Ockham Award (2017), and he has held Visiting Professorships in Canada and the United States. From 1994 to 2005, he served on the Medicines Commission of the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

He has published more than 1,000 scientific papers (current H‑Index: 154), over 50 books, translated into more than a dozen languages, and more than 100 book chapters. He also authors a widely read blog (edzardernst.com). Over the course of his career, he has delivered more than 700 invited lectures worldwide, supervised more than 50 MD and PhD theses, and served as an expert witness in numerous legal cases.