1990/11/30 by William H. Schneider · 5 citations
Arts and Humanities · #Medical History and Research #French Historical and Cultural Studies #History of Medicine and Tropical Health
paper · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511572937
openalex publication_date 1990/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/05
This book, first published in 1991, examines in detail how eugenics in early twentieth-century France provided a broad cover for a variety of reform movements that attempted to bring about the biological regeneration of the French population. Like several other societies during this period, France showed a growing interest in natalist, neo-Larmarckian, social hygiene, racist, and other biologically based movements as a response to the perception that French society was in a state of decline and degeneration. William Schneider's study provides a fascinating account of attempts to apply new discoveries in biology and medicine toward the improvement in the inherited biological quality of the population through such measures as birth control, premarital examinations, sterilization, and immigration restriction. It is the first attempt to set forth the major components of French eugenics both for comparison with other countries and to show the interaction of the various movements that comprised it.