PubMed · 15414149
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R BRIQUET JUNIOR. 1950. [Notes on some eugenic measures].. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15414149/
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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.
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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.