The human experiments were performed by Japanese medical students, doctors and researchers at the biological and chemical warfare development sites, such as at Pingfang and other facilities throughout China. The types of experiments included the testing of chemical and biological weapons and medical experiments. To test biological and chemical warfare, prisoners were brought to special testing sites, tied to stakes in the ground, and exposed to biological and chemical weapons. In other cases, they were injected with various types of bacteria to test their immunity, or were given food contaminated with pathogens. Doctors carefully monitored the progress of the diseases and injuries they inflicted, and autopsied all victims. According to many reports and repentant perpetrators, most of the dissections were performed while the victims were alive and with no anesthetic in order to avoid compromising the results. The live vivisections involved removing vital organs, at least one amputation of an arm or a leg, and then a tracheotomy before the victim was finally executed by injection.

They also performed a number of medical experiments aimed at furthering research on soldier survival and treatment. They put people in pressure chambers until their eyes popped out and blood was forced through their skin. They denied people food and water to determine maximum survival length. They put people into scalding or ice water to test the human body's ability to withstand severe temperatures. They exposed people's naked limbs to extreme cold to perform frostbite experiments, amputating limbs that were frozen solid and then moving on to other limbs. They also injected women with sexually transmitted diseases and then performed live dissections of their internal organs to research the progression of the infections. These are just a few of the examples of human experiments performed at Pingfang and other research facilities established and run by the Imperial Japanese army.

Nobody survived the experiments, and bodies were cremated in large incinerators. Although most researchers estimate that there were around 3,000 victims of the human experiments in Pingfang alone and thousands more at other facilities, it is difficult to ascertain exact figures. Each prisoner was assigned a number between 101 and 1,500, and the count would start again after 1500 people. This makes it difficult to trace the exact numbers, even with official records. Sheldon Harris, an expert on Japanese biological warfare during WWII, conservatively estimates that 10,000 to 12,000 people were killed in these lab experiments. (Harris, 2002) But even he admits that until the major archives are open, precise estimates are difficult to ascertain. What we do know is that the human experiments done by the Imperial Japanese Army and its medical research staff exceeded in number and in brutality any similar programs in recorded history.