1923/01/01 by CHIARA BECCALOSSI, Chiara Beccalossi, José Ma Bover · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Art #Augustinian Studies and Theology #Biopower #Classics #Demography #Eugenics #Gender studies #Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices #Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes #History #Humanities #Intervention (counseling) #Law #Medical History and Research #Medicine #Normalization (sociology) #Philosophy #Political science #Politics #Population #Psychiatry #Race (biology) #Religious and Theological Studies #Social science #Sociology #Theology and Canon Law Studies
paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.1017/s0007087419000906
published in Estudios Eclesiásticos Revista de investigación e información teológica y canónica 2(6), 134-151 (Comillas Pontifical University)
openalex publication_date 1923/01/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
This essay explores how hormone treatments were used to optimize and normalize individuals under Italian Fascism. It does so by taking the activities of the Biotypological Orthogenetic Institute - an Italian eugenics and endocrinological centre founded by Nicola Pende in 1926 - as the prime example of a version of eugenics, biotypology, which was based on hormone therapies. This essay first demonstrates that Italian Fascist biopolitics was not only concerned with increasing the size of the Italian population, but also with improving its quality. It suggests that under the Italian Fascist regime hormone therapies became eugenic tools of intervention to improve the Italian race. Second, while Pende's institute purportedly enhanced men and women, its activities show the extent to which the 'techniques of normalization' pursued by the Fascist regime were both systematic and invasive.