The term "comfort women" was used by the Japanese during World War II, for Chinese, Korean and Phillipine women forced to be sex slaves for their soldiers.
During Dukat's transmission to Kira, Federation LCARS style interfaces are just barely visible on the wall behind him, indicating he is still using the shuttlecraft he stole in Waltz (1998).
The title of this episode is a quotation from the 1820 Percy Bysshe Shelley lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound.
The original idea for this episode was to do a show based on the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, who was notorious for performing bizarre and barbaric experiments on concentration camp inmates during World War II. The idea of an infamous Cardassian doctor experimenting on Bajorans was later reused in Nothing Human (1998).
When Dukat tells Kira that Sisko allowed him to see behind the lies and face the truth about himself, he is referring to Waltz (1998), where Dukat comes to realize that he truly hates the Bajoran people and he admits that he feels he should have exterminated them all during the Occupation.