The Progress of Eugenics: Growth of Knowledge and Change in Ideology

Paul Diane has stressed the importance of this distinction for the kind of analysis I am attempting in this paper.

The two cases are more extensively discussed in Roll-Hansen N. , “The death of spontaneous generation and the birth of the gene: Two case studies of relativism”, Social studies of science, xiii (1983), 481–519.

Pasteur Louis , Oeuvres (Paris, 1922–39), ii, 332.

Pasteur , Oeuvres, vii, 334.

Dunn Leslie C. , “Cross currents in the history of human genetics”, American journal of human genetics, xiv (1962), 1–13.

ibid., 3.

ibid., 11.

ibid., 8.

Provine William B. , “Geneticists and the biology of race crossing”, Science, clxxxii (1973), 790–6, p. 796.

Allen Garland , “Genetics, eugenics and society: Internalists and externalists in contemporary history of science”, Social studies of science, vi (1976), 105–22, p. 119.

Allen Garland , “Genetics, eugenics and class struggle”, Genetics, lxxix (1975), supplement, 29–45.

MacKenzie Donald , “Eugenics in Britain”, Social studies of science, vi (1976), 499–532.

Allen , op. cit. (ref. 11), 39.

See for instance: Freeden M. , “Eugenics and progressive thought: A study in ideological affinity”, The historical journal, xxii (1979), 645–71; Paul D. , “Eugenics and the Left”, Journal of the history of ideas, xlv (1984), 567–90.

Olby R. , “Human genetics, eugenics & the state” (unpublished manuscript, 1981).

Darwin G. H. , “Marriages between first cousins in England and their effects”, Journal of the Statistical Society, xcviii (1875), 172.

Uckermann V. K. , De Døvstumme i Norge (Kristiania, 1896) and Les sourds-muets en Norvége (Christiania, 1901).

Allen G. , Thomas Hunt Morgan, the man and his science (Princeton, 1978), 227ff.

Searle G. R. , Eugenics and politics in Britain, 1900–1914 (Leyden, 1976), 42f.

Ludmerer K. M. , Genetics and American society (Baltimore, 1972), 33.

Roll-Hansen N. , “Eugenics before World War II, the case of Norway”, History and philosophy of the life sciences, ii (1980), 269–98.

The name was Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration. See Olby (ref. 15).

Vogt R. , Arvelighedslære og Racehygiene (Kristiania, 1914), 97.

Kevles D. , In the name of eugenics (New York, 1985), 105. Ludmerer , op. cit. (ref. 20), 61.

Davenport C. B. , Huntington's chorea in relation to heredity and eugenics (Cold Spring Harbor, N.C., 1916).

Schneider W. , “Toward the improvement of the human race: The history of eugenics in France”, Journal of modern history, liv (1982), 268–91, p. 286f.

Ludmerer , op. cit. (ref. 20), 80–85.

East E. M. , Mankind at the crossroads (New York, 1924), p. vi.

Ludmerer , op. cit. (ref. 20), 82.

ibid., 95ff.

Allen , op. cit. (ref. 11), 39.

Ludmerer , op. cit. (ref. 20), 110.

See for instance Mjøen J. A. , “Harmonic and disharmonic race-crossings”, Eugenics in race and state, ii: Scientific papers of the Second International Congress of Eugenics, New York, September 22–28, 1921 (Baltimore, 1923), 41–61.

A more detailed account of these events is found in Roll-Hansen, op. cit. (ref. 21).

Mohr O. L. , Arvelærens Grundtræk (Kristiania, 1923).

Mohr O. L. , “Menneskeavlen under kultur”, Samtiden (Oslo), xxxvii, 22–48.

Letter from Muller H. J. to Mohr O. L. , New York, 22 April 1936. Kept at Institute for Medical Genetics, University of Oslo.

The author is presently engaged in a project comparing the introduction and application of sterilization laws in the Nordic countries, together with Gunnar Broberg, Uppsala University, Marjatta Hietala, University of Helsinki, and Bent Sigurd Hansen, Odense University. The preliminary results of this project indicate that the situation was similar in all the Nordic countries.

Carlsen I. B. , “Moderne slektshygiene og kristen livsoppfatning”, Kirke og Kultur, no. 7 (1933), 410–14.

Kevles , op. cit. (ref. 24), 169–72.

Searle , op. cit. (ref. 19).

Searle G. R. , “Eugenics and politics in Britain in the 1930s”, Annals of science, xxxvi (1979), 159–69.

ibid., 162.

Kevles , op. cit. (ref. 24), 134ff.

Allen Garland E. , “The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910–1940: An essay in institutional history”, Osiris, 2nd series, ii (1986), 225–64.

ibid., 250–2.

See for instance correspondence in the Dunn L. C. Collection, American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia.

Kevles , op. cit. (ref. 24), 123.

Ludmerer , op. cit. (ref. 20), 175.

Kevles , op. cit. (ref. 24), 173.

Adams M. B. , “Soviet medical genetics in the 1930s” (manuscript, 1985) and Kevles, op. cit. (ref. 24). See also Carlson E. A. , “Eugenics and basic genetics” in Muller's H. J. “Approach to human genetics”, History and philosophy of the life sciences, ix (1987), 57–87.

Kevles , op. cit. (ref. 24), 158–63.

Olby R. C. , “La theorie génétique de la sélection naturelle vue par un historien”, Revue de synthèse, III^e s., no. 103–4 (July–December 1981), 251–89.

See for instance Searle , op. cit. (ref. 42), 164–5.

Huxley J. S. , “Eugenics and society”, Eugenics review, xxviii (1936–37), 11–31.

ibid., 25.

ibid., 27.

“Men and mice at Edinburgh. Reports from the Genetics Congress”, The journal of heredity, xxx (1939), 371–4.

Huxley , op. cit. (ref. 55), 31.

Muller H. J. , “The dominance of economics over eugenics”, A decade of progress in eugenics. Third International Congress of Eugenics, New York 1932 (Baltimore, 1934).

Mjøen J. A. , “Harmonic and unharmonic crossings (Racetypes and racecrossings in Northern Norway)”, The eugenics review, xiv (April 1922–January 1923), 35–40.

Provine , op. cit. (ref. 9).

Castle W. E. , “Biological and social consequences of race-crossing”, The journal of heredity, xv (1924), 363–9.

Provine , op. cit. (ref. 9), 792–3.

Provine , op. cit. (ref. 9), 794.

Provine , op. cit. (ref. 9), 796.

Provine , op. cit. (ref. 9), 795.

Provine , op. cit. (ref. 9), 795–6. See also The race concept, a book published by UNESCO, Paris, in 1952, and republished in 1970 by Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut.

Paul , op. cit. (ref. 14), 574, 587.

Paul , op. cit. (ref. 14), 587.

Provine , op. cit. (ref. 9), 796.

In personal conversation and correspondence with the author.

See Kemp T. , Arvehygiejne. Festskrift udgivet af Köbenshavns Universitet i anledning af Universitetets Årsfest November 1951 (Copenhagen, 1951), 18–33. According to Proctor Robert , Racial hygiene, medicine under the nazis (Harvard University Press, forthcoming), sterilization laws were passed in Czechoslovakia and Hungary as well as Yugoslavia, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey and Cuba. But he does not give dates or other details about the circumstances (p. 155 in manuscript). Part of the inconsistency between Kemp and Proctor may be due to the laws being passed after the beginning of the Second World War. In some cases this may imply that they were imposed under German occupation.

Statement by Mohr O. L. to Medical Faculty, University of Oslo. Archive of Law section (“Lovavdelingen”), Ministry of Justice, Oslo.

Roll-Hansen , op. cit. (ref. 21), 293–4.

Law on Sterilization of 3 June 1977.

Ot.prp. nr. 46, 1976–77. (Proposition on a new law of sterilization, presented by the Department of Social Affairs to the Norwegian Parliament).

Tydén Mattias , “Från statligt till enskilt interesse [From state to private concern]. Den svenska steriliseringslagstiftningens motiv, utforming och tillämpning under 1900-tallet”, B-level paper written for Department of Political Science, Uppsala, spring term 1986.

Kemp , op. cit. (ref. 73), 34–35, 59.

Kemp , op. cit. (ref. 73), 33.

Scharffenberg Johan , “Hygieneutstillingen i Dresden”, Social-Demokraten (Oslo), 25 October and 1 November 1911.

Weindling Paul , “Die Preussische Medizinalverwaltung und die ‘Rassenhygiene”’, Zeitschrift für Sozialreform, 1984, 675–87.

Weiss S. , “Wilhelm Schallmeyer and the logic of German eugenics”, Isis, lxxvii (1986), 33–46, p. 33.

This explanation of the German race hygiene movement in terms of its “logic” is further developed in Weiss S. , “The race hygiene movement in Germany”, Osiris, 2nd series, iii (1987), 193–236.

Among the more important books are Bock G. , Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus (Opladen, 1986) and Klee E. , Euthanasie im NS Staat (Frankfurt, 1983).

Weindling P. , “Soziale Hygiene: Eugenik und medizinische Praxis — Der Fall Alfred Grotjahn”, in Abholz H. H. (eds), Kritische Medizin in Argument (Berlin, 1984), 6–20. See also Weindling P. , “Medical practice in imperial Berlin: The casebook of Alfred Grotjahn”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, lxi (1987), 391–410.

Noakes Jeremy , “Nazism and eugenics: The background to the Nazi sterilization law of 14 July 1933”, in Bullen B. J. , Ideas into politics: Aspects of European history 1880–1950 (London, 1984), 75–94, pp. 83–84:

Lilienthal Georg , “Rassenhygiene im Dritten Reich: Krise und Wende”, Medizinhistorisches journal, xiv (1979), 114–34, p. 117.

Noakes , op. cit. (ref. 87), 83.

Noakes , op. cit. (ref. 87), 84.

Lilienthal , op. cit. (ref. 88), 124.

See for instance, Scharffenberg Johan , “En tysk sterilisasjonslov”, Arbeiderbladet (Oslo), 1 September 1933.

Lilienthal , op. cit. (ref. 88), 124.

Weindling P. , “Weimar eugenics: The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Social Context”, Annals of science, xlii (1985), 303–18, 315. Weiss S. , op. cit. (ref. 84), 222, also notes that the Nazis forced a change in direction of German eugenics after 1933.

Lilienthal , op. cit. (ref. 88), 128.

Noakes , op. cit. (ref. 87), 88.

Müller-Hill Benno , Tödliche Wissenschaft: Die Aussonderung von Juden, Zigeunern und Geisteskranken 1933–45 (Hamburg, 1984), 26–31.

ibid., 88.

ibid., 93, 99.

Müller-Hill Benno , “Genetics after Auschwitz”, Holocaust and genocide studies, ii (1987), 3–20, p. 15.

Provine , op. cit. (ref. 9), 796.

Paul , op. cit. (ref. 14), 575.

Allen , op. cit. (ref. 11), 44.

Allen , op. cit. (ref. 10), 118–19.

MacKenzie Donald , “Eugenics in Britain”, Social studies of science, vi (1976), 499–532, pp. 519–20. In a more recent account in his book on Statistics in Britain 1865–1930 (Edinburgh, 1981), MacKenzie repeats essentially the same view, though the link between capitalism and eugenics is somewhat weakened. Hogben is still discussed as a leftist critic of eugenics, Haldane no more. But neither is mentioned as supporter of a moderate eugenics under socialist auspices.

Paul , op. cit. (ref. 14), 572.

Muller H. J. , “Progress and prospects in human genetics”, The American journal of human genetics, i (1949), 1–18, p. 3.

Ludmerer , op. cit. (ref. 20). Kevles , op. cit. (ref. 24).

Roth K. H. , “Schöner neuer Mensch. Der Paradigmenweschsel der klassischen Genetik und seine Auswirkung auf die Bevölkerungsbiologie des ‘Dritten Reichs”’, in Kaupen-Haas H. (ed.), Der Griff nach der Bevälkerung, Schriften der Hamburger Stiffung für Sozialgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, i (Nördlingen, 1986), 11–63, pp. 58–59.

Weingart P. , “Eugenik — Eine angewandte Wissenschaft, Utopien der Menschenzücktung zwischen Wissenschaftsentwicklung und Politik”, in Lundgreen P. (ed.), Wissenschaft in Dritten Reich (Suhrkamp, 1985), 314–49, pp. 331–2.