PubMed · 14812776
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H BERGUES. 1951-02-03. [Eugenics, problems, methods, results].. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14812776/
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Tuberculosis was clearly one of the most predominant diseases of the early twentieth century. At this time, Americans involved in the eugenics movement grew increasingly interested in methods to prevent this disease's potential hereditary spread. To do so, as this essay examines, eugenicists' attempted to shift the accepted view that tuberculosis arose from infection and contagion to a view of its heritable nature. The methods that they employed to better understand the propagation and control of tuberculosis are also discussed. Finally, the essay explores the interpretative analyses of data that the Eugenics Record Office used in an attempt to convince contemporaries of the hereditary transmission of tuberculosis.
In 1905 the first German association of Social Medicine was founded. Out of its now 100 years of history two aspects which were of peculiar importance for its development are studied here by the method of historic analysis of the sources and the examination of secondary literature: the noteworthiness of this foundation is characterized by the fact that the society was based from its beginnings on multidisciplinarity and the appliance of different scientific methods. It is showed which fascination had exclusively biological and genetic explanations for the genesis of diseases and human attitude characteristics. In transformation to practical action these ideas led to the extermination of disease causing genetic attributes and often their bearers as well. This aim was followed up even when the genetic causation of specified attitudes was not clearly proved. These biological interpretations of disease phenomenons neglected social causes for the process of the appearance of certain diseases and the emergence of health. They were responsible for medical interventions into the physical integrity of hundreds of thousands of human beings under the political terms and conditions of National Socialism.
When the study of human inheritance became a topic of scientific interest more than 100 years ago, brain function and mental disease immediately attracted the interest of researchers. Psychiatric genetics was dominated from its early beginnings by the question of nature and nurture. Today this problem can be quantitatively approached with odds ratios and attributable risks for certain genotypes. The false doctrine of eugenics and its practical application by the Nazi regime paved the way for the development of a prevailing anxiety in society that psychiatric genetics might lead to stigmatisation or even a revitalization of eugenics. The major challenge for the field, however, stems from the attitudes of fellow geneticists who doubt that genetics can ever contribute to an understanding of brain function and mental disease. Whereas genetically complex traits are being successfully pinned down to the molecular level in other fields of medicine, psychiatric genetics still awaits a major breakthrough. Although mental disorders are harder to tackle than any other complex disease the concepts developed and the methods available today are powerful enough to predict a bright future of the field.