History of social hygiene, eugenics, exchange of medical knowledge across national and ideological borders in the 19th and 20th centuries

Este libro tiene como objetivo general analizar las relaciones entre higiene, geopolítica y poder político en las estrategias de erradicación y segregación de grupos poblacionales implementadas en Santiago de Chile durante la dictadura militar de 1973 a 1990, valorando las rupturas y las continuidades que pueden identificarse entre el reformismo sociosanitario liberal y las medidas neoliberales de regulación social.
Para la consecución de este propósito se abordan, en primer lugar, algunos de los antecedentes más notables de este proceso en el Estado liberal chileno del siglo XIX, a través de dos estudios de caso especialmente significativos, como son la transformación urbana de Santiago de Chile, llevada a cabo bajo la intendencia de Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, y los planteamientos en torno a la cuestión social y el gobierno de las poblaciones del médico Augusto Orrego Luco. Ambas propuestas contribuyeron a consolidar modelos científicos de higienización y segregación social.
En segundo lugar, ya en el marco cronológico de la dictadura militar, se analiza el importante papel que la geopolítica desempeñó en las estrategias de regionalización y erradicación poblacional, identificando sus fundamentos teóricos y su relación con la Doctrina de Seguridad Nacional.
Finalmente, se estudian las políticas concretas, relativas al traslado de la población hacia comunas periféricas, que marcaron un nuevo ordenamiento socio-espacial y que han permitido trazar un «itinerario de la erradicación» que presta especial atención al análisis de la política de vivienda social -como parte de la llamada política de erradicación de la pobreza-, así como a las políticas de reproducción y alimentación de la población como un programa científico de higiene individual y colectiva.
Agradecimientos.- Introducción.- Los proyectos pioneros liberales. Erradicación e higiene en la ciudad bárbara.- Erradicación y biología de las poblaciones. Augusto Orrego Luco y la cuestión social.- La geopolítica, el "Estado ameba" y la población.- La construcción de un país orgánico (I). Geopolítica y regionalización.- La construcción de un país orgánico (II). Geopolítica y erradicación.- Erradicación y vivienda social.- Erradicación, alimentación y laboratorio social.- Conclusiones.- Bibliografía.

Revealing continuity and change co-exist in history, Swedish/Sami missionary Lars Levi Laestadius played a key role in the colonization of Nordic Sami women by medicalizing female shamanistic experiences and mythology. The modern social reformer was a transitional figure in the evolution of Sami religion and natural medicine.

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1288.3041

Richard Wetzell’s chapter argues that we must distinguish the question of the complicity of German racial scientists – including eugenicists, anthropologists, human geneticists, and Rassenforscher – in Nazi eugenic and racial policy from the question of what influence these scientists had on the shaping of Nazi eugenic and racial policy. While the bioscientists’ widespread complicity is now well documented, Wetzell challenges the claims that Nazi racial science “created the conceptual framework” for Nazi racial policy (Burleigh and Wippermann) or that Nazi racial policy was propelled by a “fatal racist dynamic” in the biosciences (Peukert). Racial science could not have provided a coherent conceptual framework because the field was characterized by competing conceptions of race and heredity, which frequently led to controversies and conflicts, three of which are examined in the first part of Wetzell’s chapter. In assessing racial science’s influence on policy, Wetzell argues, one has to differentiate between different scientific fields and different areas of Nazi policy. Whereas key figures in the eugenics movement were indeed eager to cooperate with the Nazi regime in order to implement their eugenic agenda and actively sought to radicalize Nazi eugenic policy, German anthropologists and Rassenforscher certainly contributed to and participated in Nazi racial policy but did not shape or radicalize it to nearly the same extent as eugenicists did in the case of Nazi eugenic policy. Instead of using “race” as an analytical category for understanding the Third Reich, Wetzell contends, we must recognize that “race” was a diffuse concept whose competing and contested meanings in the Third Reich are in need of historical analysis. A careful examination of the interaction of racial science with the Nazi regime, he argues, should elucidate how both scientists and Nazi officials deployed competing conceptions of race for various strategic purposes at different points in the development of the Nazi regime.

This study won a national article prize from the History of Science Society.  Informed by group-grid theory, it offers a political analysis of the rise and fall of Henry H. Goddard's eugenic program at Ohio's Bureau of Juvenile Research from 1913-1922.

Din cuprins:
Idealul eugenic • Internationalizarea eugenismului • Razboiul: singurul igienist al lumii • Cruciada eugenismului: cantitate sau calitate? • Biologia politica • Tehnologiile eugenice ale perfectionarii nationale • Stigmatul eugenic • Fundatii ceresti, planificare rationala • Biopolitica si rasism • Controlarea minoritatilor etnice • Statul biopolitic

What is the genealogy of the idea of cyborgization? To what extent is the contemporary man cyborgized? Is the birth of cyborgization accompanied with changes in the perception of education? The book is an attempt at replying these questions. A thesis is posed about cyborgization being an ideological hybrid of new eugenics and transhumanism, and that it reaches eugenics genealogically. It shows that the birth of cyborgization is accompanied with a concept of the dawn of education, or the idea of superfluity, from a traditional perspective, of education in the technoworld. The dawn of education is a sort of regularity in thinking about the role of education in the technoprogress of the man; it is a sort of order in viewing the future of the relations between the man and education. This regularity, or this order,  is rarely explicit; most often it is implicit. It is explicit in the sense that texts on the systems of new eugenics and transhumanism sometimes talk directly about the fact that some technological activities replace education, and are more effective. On the other hand, it is implicit in the sense that these texts present detailed strategies for the stimulation of human progress, omitting educational effects completely; all stimulus types are exclusively of technological nature.

Jaka jest genealogia idei cyborgizacji? W jakim stopniu cyborgizowany jest współczesny człowiek? Czy narodzinom cyborgizacji towarzyszą przemiany sposobu postrzegania edukacji? Książka jest próbą odpowiedzi na te pytania. Postawiono w niej tezę, iż cyborgizacja jest ideową hybrydą nowej eugeniki i transhumanizmu oraz, że genealogicznie sięga eugeniki. Ukazuje ona, że narodzinom cyborgizacji towarzyszy konstrukcja idei zmierzchu edukacji, czyli idei zbyteczności – tradycyjnie ujmowanej – edukacji w technoświecie. Zmierzch edukacji to pewna regularność myślenia o roli edukacji w technoprogresie człowieka, to pewien porządek w spoglądaniu na przyszłość relacji człowiek-edukacja. Regularność ta (czy ów porządek) ukazuje są nam z rzadka explicite, najczęściej implicite. Explicite w tym sensie, że w tekstach z zakresu systemów nowej eugeniki i transhumanizmu mówi się czasami wprost o tym, że pewne działania techniczne zastępują edukację, że są od niej efektywniejsze. Implicite natomiast w tym znaczeniu, że w tekstach tych przedstawia się szczegółowe strategie stymulowania progresu człowieka, zupełnie z pominięciem oddziaływań edukacyjnych – wszelkie typy stymulatorów mają tu wyłącznie naturę techniczną.

In reaction to industrial and urban development and its effects on health during the Belle Epoque, doctors endeavored to promote a program of hygienic reform. Militant vegetarians and naturopathy enthusiasts, sharing their apprehensions, translated this program into a number of concrete recommendations. Presented as an alternative solution to the detrimental effects of modern life, these reforms were supposed to guarantee a way of living that would conform to the laws of nature and therefore be conducive to health. The circulation of this health reform program was based both on a nebula of "reformist" organizations, including a key player, the Société Végétarienne de France (the French society for vegetarianism), and on norms of healthy consumption associated with the formation of specific commercial networks.

Réagissant à la poussée industrielle et urbaine de la Belle Époque et à ses conséquences sanitaires, des médecins s’attachent à promouvoir un programme de réforme hygiénique des mœurs et des comportements. Les militants végétariens et les adeptes des médecines naturistes, sensibles à leurs alarmes, traduisent alors ce programme en un ensemble de recommandations concrètes. Présentées comme une alternative aux méfaits de la vie moderne, celles-ci sont censées garantir un mode d’existence conforme aux lois de la nature et, par conséquent, propice à la santé. La diffusion de ce programme de réforme prend appui à la fois sur une nébuleuse d’associations « réformatrices », au sein de laquelle la Société végétarienne de France joue un rôle de premier plan, et sur sa traduction en normes de consommation « hygiéniques » accompagnées par la formation de réseaux commerciaux spécifiques.

Esta investigación propone situar la propuesta de esterilización eugénica
presente en “La Realidad Médico-Social Chilena”  (1939) de Salvador Allende en el contexto histórico de la discusión de esta medida en la década de 1930 en Chile. El trabajo presenta un panorama en el que
surge una visión alternativa a la presente en los trabajos de Víctor Farías sobre el tema.

Everything in Holocaust history began to crumble with the Berlin Wall. The world was given access to what amounted to more than half the documentary evidence and historical sites. The WWII generation in Germany began to die away, and sources and evidence once closely guarded became available. As such, our understanding of The Holocaust is evolving and maturing. The Eugenics Anthology book series addresses the vast gaps in now outdated Holocaust history. It is based on original archival research, most of which has gone unnoticed, unaddressed, and unpublished.

Inwiefern wurden im Nationalsozialismus neben behinderten Menschen auch Tuberkulosekranke Opfer von Krankenmord? Mit dieser grundlegenden Frage beschäftigt sich ein neues Forschungsprojekt, das im Mai 2015 mit großzügiger finanzieller Unterstützung durch das Forschungsnetzwerk Alterssicherung der Deutschen Rentenversicherung gestartet ist. Damit stellt sich die DRV ihrer historischen Verantwortung: Die Bekämpfung der Volkskrankheit Tuberkulose zählte in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts zu einer der großen Aufgaben der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung, die dadurch in erheblichem Maß in die nationalsozialistische Gesundheitspolitik eingebunden war. Entsprechend untersucht die Studie zum einen die konkrete medizinische und pflegerische Behandlung von Tuberkulosepatienten in Einrichtungen und Belegkliniken der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung, zum anderen fragt sie nach den Akteuren und Verantwortlichkeiten für eventuelle Fälle von Patientenmord und lotet deren Entscheidungsspielräume innerhalb des NS-Regimes aus. Wo handelten Mediziner und Krankenpflegepersonal auf Anordnung, wo hingegen ging der Patientenmord möglicherweise auf Initiativen vor Ort zurück, die dann nur mehr vom NS-Regime unterstützt wurden? Das Projekt verbindet somit medizin-, sozial-und politikgeschichtliche Ansätze zu einer Gesellschaftsgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus, die die Beteiligung an und die Unterstützung der Diktatur in den Blick nimmt. Neben der Frage, wer wie viel Verantwortung am Krankenmord trug, geht es vor allem auch um die Frage nach dem Warum. Ein bis heute ungeklärtes Problem ist der Stellenwert, den hier der Rassismus besaß. Während frühere Forschungen letztlich alle Verbrechen der Diktatur allein auf rassistisches Denken zurückführten, werden in der aktuellen Forschung auch andere Begründungszusammenhänge wie Nation, Religion, Klasse und kriegswirtschaftliche Nützlichkeitskalküle diskutiert. Genau hier setzt das Projekt ein: Es untersucht, inwieweit auch ökonomische Erwägungen eine Rolle bei der Behandlung von Tuberkulosepatienten spielten. Das betrifft vor allem die Frage nach deren Arbeitsfähigkeit: Entschied sich das Schicksal von Tbc-Kranken möglicherweise an der Frage, ob sie noch arbeiten konnten oder eine vermeintliche Belastung für das Gesundheitssystem darstellten? War es also am Ende weniger die rassistische Vorstellung von einer " reinen Volksgemeinschaft " als vielmehr die ihnen zugeschriebene geringe " Nützlichkeit " der Patienten für die Kriegsanstrengungen der deutschen Gesellschaft, die ihre unzureichende medizinische Behandlung und evtl. auch den Mord an ihnen begründete?

In this article based on previously unpublished archival sources and rarely accessed medical publications of the 1920s the author analyzes the anti-syphilis campaign in a remote Soviet autonomous republic populated by a Mongolian-speaking national minority - Buriat-Mongols in the 1920s. Unlike previous students of this problem, such as S. Solomon, the author concentrates on the Soviet goals of the campaign and looks into pragmatic objectives that the Bolsheviks set before their newly created European healthcare system in national borderland autonomies. The author views the anti-syphilis campaign as a peculiar eugenic program for a nation whose goal was to project the successes of "Bolshevik medicine" onto the "downtrodden peoples of the Orient", mostly the Mongols.

Entre 1877 et 1897 la Congrégation du Saint-Office eut à examiner cinq dubia concernant le statut moral de la fécondation artificielle appliquée aux êtres humains. Les inquisiteurs romains se formèrent un jugement précis dès le premier dubium, après avoir requis l'avis compétent de conseillers issus du monde médical, qui surent leur expliquer les caractéristiques d'une pratique parfai-tement inconnue à l'intérieur des murs de la congrégation. Ce premier jugement ne fut, toutefois, pas rendu public : sa circulation resta confinée aux canaux confidentiels de la communication ecclésiastique, accompagnée de la recommandation explicite d'en limiter au maximum la circulation, pour ne donner aucune publi-cité à une opération qui présentait divers aspects problématiques au regard de la morale catholique. Ce n'est qu'en 1897, vingt ans après le premier débat inquisitorial, que la Congrégation du Saint-Office décida de faire connaître ses propres positions, en publiant le dispositif du décret dans les Acta Apostolicae Sedis. La première parmi les institutions religieuses des diverses confessions, l'Église catholique prenait ainsi une position définitive sur une expérience thérapeutique qui, à la fin du XIX e siècle, demeurait encore rela-tivement peu connue, dans la pratique et même dans le discours médical. Durant les vingt ans qui séparent les deux décisions, le jugement des inquisiteurs demeura pratiquement immuable, le vrai facteur de discontinuité résidant dans le choix de rendre public les déci-sions inquisitoriales, mais à un moment où le parcours normatif se trouvait déjà dans une phase avancée. Sur les bureaux des inquisi-teurs s'étaient accumulées les interrogations et les réflexions adres-sées par des fidèles concernant la moralité de cette procédure de fécondation, tandis que parallèlement s'étaient également opérées une série de transformations culturelles et sociales impliquant l'Église elle-même, si bien que la discipline de la fécondation arti-ficielle constituait à bien des égards une sorte de condensé de tels changements. En effet, l'intervention normative du Saint-Office en la matière se fit dans un contexte historique marqué par les efforts de l'Église catholique, en particulier à travers sa congrégation la plus influente

One of the most rewarding aspects of the rewrite and reboot of “The Eugenics Anthology” was working with now-retired Professor Garland E. Allen. Anyone that has spent any amount of time researching eugenics and scientific racism knows that Professor Allen is one of the most often cited authorities on the subject. Professor Allen led the move to research the American side of the International eugenics movement and was rummaging through the Laughlin Papers at Truman University’s Special Collections before they were even organized into boxes. Professor Allen was a pioneer, while others in academia had a myopic focus on the German side of the equation.

Needless to say, benefiting from Professor Allen’s guidance through the rewrite of “H.H. Laughlin” was a milestone in itself; one of those occasions where the journey was a reward in itself. It is thus that I am proud to share the Foreword Professor Allen wrote for “H.H. Laughlin.”  - A.E. Samaan, 12/13/2020

The Greek biopolitics of reproduction during the postwar period was determined by the demographic figures. Instead of a rise in births, Greece experienced a constant downward trajectory of the birth rate throughout the second half of the twentieth century. The country also witnessed population instability due to the massive immigration in the 1960s and the wave of repatriation in the next decade. The article explores the state's bio-politics in order to achieve demographic equilibrium by adopting a pronatalist perspective. The construction of biopolitics was influenced by the consecutive wars of the first half of the century resulting in the denial of any means suspected of reducing the birth rate, such as contraception and abortion. In parallel, the article investigates the attempts of a group of eugenicists to impose to the state authorities their own views on reproduction control. The key debates were birth control and abortion because these issues of reproduction were entangled with major social fermentations caused by urbanization, modernization, eugenics, and feminism. The Constitution of 1974 was instrumental in changing the biopolitics of reproduction by introducing equal rights to men and women. It provoked a series of legal transformations with regard to marriage, family, and reproduction.

Книгата проследява употреби на биомедицински, психологиче-ски и евгенични дискурси в България за регулиране на достъпа до публичността от края на XIX в. до Втората световна война. Изследват се фигури на анормалното и неговите носители, как-то се конструират и нормализират в определени социално-ин-ституционални пространства: съдебнопсихиатрично (между клиниката и затвора); медико-педагогическо (на училищната здравна служба); административно-медицинско (на чиновниче-ските служби, фабриката и армията, вкл. трудова) и брачно-хигиенното (на семейството). Различните форми на анормал-ност в обсега на изследване се разглеждат като отклонения от биомедицински норми в техните разнообразни, исторически променливи, стратегически сечения със социокултурни и прав-ни норми. Този негативно определен "здравен ценз" за публично участие открива неизследвани подстъпи към културните про-тиворечия на българската модерност.

The History of East-Central European Eugenics, 1900-1945 redefines the European history of eugenics by exploring the ideological transmission of eugenics internationally and its application locally in East-Central Europe. Using 100 primary sources translated from the East-Central European languages into English for the first time, in addition to the key contributions of leading scholars in the field from around Europe, this book examines the main eugenic organisations, as well as individuals and policies that shaped eugenics in Austria, Poland, former Czechoslovakia, former Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania. It also explores the ways in which ethnic minorities interacted with national and international eugenics discourses to advance their own aims and ambitions, whilst providing a comparative analysis of the emergence and development of eugenics in East-Central Europe more generally.

Latin eugenics was a scientific, cultural and political programme designed to biologically empower modern European and American nations once commonly described as ‘Latin’. With the emergence of eugenics in the late 19th century, this common cultural and scientific identity became a fundamental component of an internationally influential Latin version of eugenics.
Latin Eugenics in Comparative Perspective offers a nuanced approach to eugenics as a scientific program as well as a cultural and political phenomenon. It examines the commonalities of eugenics in ‘Latin’ Europe and Latin America. The book also analyses the component ideas of Latin eugenics, such as Catholic eugenics, population and family policies, maternal and infant health, preventive medicine, social hygiene and public health. As a programme to achieve the social and political goals of modern welfare systems, Latin eugenics strongly influenced the complex relationship of the state to the individual.
Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources in many languages, this book offers the first history of Latin eugenics in Europe and the Americas.

The article presents the basic assumptions of philosophies constitutive points of reference for the idea of cyborgization (new eugenics and transhumanism). It also highlights how education might be perceived in relation to these ideas. Such a presentation is important because the concept of cyborgization revolutionizes our thinking about the core of humanity. On the other hand, it is the foundation for another idea: the twilight of education, or irrelevance of traditionally understood education in the technoworld. Twilight of education is a certain regularity of reflection about the role of education in human technological progress. It is an orderly method of looking at the future of the relation between humans and education. This regularity and order are rarely expressed explicitly; instead, we encounter them implicitly. Explicitly means here that some texts in the field of new eugenics and transhumanism speak directly about how certain technological activities replace education as more effective measures. Implicitly, in turn, means that such texts present detailed strategies for stimulation of human progress but completely ignore educational influences. All types of stimulants are of technical nature. Analyses of the concept of cyborgization result in a prediction for the future: the traditionally educational activities shall somehow disappear from the ‘cyborgized society’, even though such a society still remains only a hypothesis. Thus the twilight of education mentioned in the title of this paper will become true.

The alarmist term “race suicide” was coined by the popular and distinguished U.S. sociologist Edward A. Ross at the turn of the 20th century. The concept was in-principle a general one. When the birth rate within a so-called race dropped below the death rate, “race suicide” was thought to be occurring, with the ultimate consequence that the “race” would die out. In practice, however, the concept was deployed to raise fears amongst members of dominant “races” about their declining numbers and the influx of foreigners. Ross, for instance, believed that “old stock Americans” were committing race suicide, to be replaced by more fertile immigrant “races”. The same fear was felt by so-called English Canadians. As the invocation of “suicide” suggests, no external violence was thought to cause race suicide. Blame was cast primarily on supposedly inferior immigrant “races” and on women. The attempt to control “race suicide” is a good example of eugenic ideas in action. Race suicide theorists believed that natural evolutionary dynamics were disrupted in the age of industry, and that social policy was needed to ensure that the supposedly superior “races” did not disappear. The concept of “race suicide” is now rejected by sociologists and other scholars because of its racism, its anti-feminism, its connection to the eugenic movement, and its use of the controversial category of “race”. Support for race as a biological category has been in decline since the mid-twentieth century. If there are no races, there can be no “race suicide”.

This text results from research undertaken for a master's degree that focused on the proposed introduction of prenuptial medical exams in the early 1900s in Brazil. This was strongly defended by Brazilian eugenicists as a much-needed means of bringing about the racial improvement of the population. The exam would help prevent the marriage and reproduction of individuals considered degenerate or inferior, seen as inadequate for the eugenic development of future generations. The debate in Brazil between doctors and intellectuals who supported the introduction of a law that would make a prenuptial medical exam mandatory is analyzed, as are the controversies and objections voiced by its critics, ultimately helping ensure it was not adopted in the country.

L'industrialisation et de l'urbanisation des sociétés occidentales, un rôle que l'on ne peut négliger. Parmi les expériences et les réalisations qu'elle a pu susciter, les programmes naturistes de réforme des modes de vie, qui apparaissent en France dans la dernière décennie du XIXe siècle, occupent une place particulière en raison de la variété des milieux sociaux qu'ils concernent et de la diversité des formes par lesquelles se manifeste leur ambition régénératrice. C'est à la genèse de ces programmes, aux enjeux culturels et sociaux de leur formulation, aux types d'organisations et aux normes de comportement auxquels ils donnent naissance qu'est consacré cet ouvrage. Il s'agit moins ici de suivre les péripéties de la vie des associations naturistes que de chercher les raisons pour lesquelles, entre la Belle Époque et les années trente, la modernité urbaine et industrielle a pu être considérée comme responsable d'un déclin qui rendait nécessaire la régénération de l'homme et de la société par le retour à la nature. L'histoire du naturisme nous offre ainsi un point d'observation pour tenter de comprendre comment une croyance, partagée par des individus venus d'horizons différents, peut produire un imaginaire collectif et susciter la formation de groupements au sein desquels s'inaugurent de nouvelles normes et de nouvelles pratiques sociales.