Murad Kevorkian was born in Pontiac Michigan in May of 1928. One would recognize this man by the name of Jack Kevorkian. He attended the University of Michigan College of Engineering, but later he switched his focus from engineering to medicine. In 1952 Kevorkian graduated in medicine. Dr. Kevorkian served his residency at the University of Michigan hospital. He was very interested in terminally ill patients, and he studied them closely trying to figure out when these patients would die. Kevorkian began to write out experiments that would end in the death of a test patient. Dr. Kevorkian presented this idea to his peers, who gave him the nickname “Dr. Death.” Later being ejected from the Michigan Medical Center he went to Pontiac General Hospital to continue his internship. At this medical center Dr. Jack Kevorkian continued to conduct controversial experiments. One experiment infected him with Hepatitis C. He moved from hospital to hospital all over the United States. The physicians Kevorkian worked with feared his ideas about death. He learned about a physician in the Netherlands who assisted patients in death by lethal injection. This fascinated Kevorkian who then built his own death machine. This machine —called the Thanatron— injected three liquids into the patient: a saline solution, a painkiller and potassium chloride (which is poisonous). With the Thanatron, terminally ill patients would be able to end their lives when they choose. This machine was banned by a Michigan judge in 1991. Kevorkian then created a new machine of death called the Mercitron. Through a gas mask this machine delivered carbon monoxide. With these machines Dr. Jack Kevorkian assisted patients in suicide. In 1988 a law was passed with a five year prison sentence for assisted suicide-- a felony. He continued to assist people with suicide
