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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

From state eugenics to private eugenics.

Eugenics--or 'the cultivation of a race'--is a concept dating from the latter part of the 19th century. It preceded the new science of genetics by merely 25 years. Negative eugenics stressed especially the exclusion of negative characteristics and was associated with the practice and theory of radical eugenics between the two World Wars. In order to redress 'the decline of the race', reinforcement by positive eugenics was also advocated. After the atrocities committed by the Nazis there was a lull in the practice and discourse of eugenics. More recent technical advances in assisted reproduction techniques and the genome project, however, have revived the eugenics debate. State eugenics and eugenics as an individual choice ought to be distinguished.

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PubMed2000

[The dispute over eugenics in interwar Poland].

The eugenic problem seems not as well known as it was in the period between the world wars. The word "eugenics" was introduced into the scientific language by the British biologist, Francis Galton at the end of the XIX century. In general, it means the study of the methods of protecting and improving the quality of the human race by selective breeding. Galton's remarks initiated a wider (social and political) movement, which was active in some countries. The eugenic tendency was visible in American immigration policy before the Great War - making it difficult for people suffering from particular diseases to enter the USA. After the war, the eugenic movement became much stronger. In some countries (e.g. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, and over half of the states of the USA) some components of the eugenic programme were introduced into legislation. The eugenic movement also appeared in reconstructed Poland. In 1918 it published it own magazine "Zagadnienia Rasy" (Problems of Human Race), later "Eugenika Polska" (Polish Eugenics). This did not imply however, that interest in the eugenic programme was generally very strong. In fact, it was limited by the influence of the Catholic Church. Another significant factor was lost Polish - German hostility. In the late thirties eugenic slogans lost popularity because of their use in Germany racist policy.

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PubMed1995

Healing society: medical language in American eugenics.

American eugenics developed out of a cultural tradition independent of medicine. However, the eugenicist Harry Hamilton Laughlin and some legal experts involved in eugenic practice in the United States used medical language in discussing and evaluating enforced eugenic sterilizations. They built on medicine as a model for healing, while at the same time playing down medicine's concern with its traditional client: the individual patient. Laughlin's attitude toward medicine was ambivalent because he wanted expert eugenicists, rather than medical experts, to control eugenic practice. In contrast, legal experts saw eugenics as an integral part of medicine, though one expert challenged basing the judicial system on eugenically minded medicine. All in all, the medicalization of American eugenics involved expanding the scope of medicine to include the mutilation of individuals for the benefit of society. The judicial system was medicalized in that an expanded medicine became the basis of legislation in the thirty states that permitted eugenic sterilizations.

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PubMed2005

Between two worlds: Yamanouchi Shigeo and eugenics in early twentieth-century Japan.

This paper explores the eugenic through of Yamanouchi Shigeo (1876-1973), who was trained in plant cytology under the tutelage of botanist and eugenicist John Coulter (1851-1928) in the USA, and later become one of the early and important popularizers of eugenic ideas in Japan. His career demonstrates a direct link between Japanese and US eugenics. Despite his academic training and research at various internationally renowned institutions, numerous publications, and longevity, his life has received little scholarly attention. By the early twentieth century, most biologists in Japan, as in the USA, began accepting Mendelian evolutionary theory and rejecting the Lamarckian notion of inheritance of acquire characteristics. However, Yamanouchi Shigeo's eugenic view represents a paradox: he was a mendelian cytologist sympathetic to Lamarckism. Was his 'nurture'-oriented eugenic view unscientific? is that why he was largely ignored in the history of botany in Japan? This study attempts to answer these questions and to analyse the origins and distinct features of Yamanouchi's eugenic ideas by situating Yamanouchi's eugenic through historically and culturally. After examining his scientific papers, popular writings, and documents of various organizations to which he belonged, I argue that Yamanouchi's 'softer' (or less biologically deterministic) perspective may have reflected the Japanese desire to catch up with the dominant 'race' by using eugenics without accepting permanent inferior status.

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