UNASSIGNED: For more than a century, scientists have tried to find the key to causation of mental ill health in heredity and genetics. The difficulty of finding clear and actionable answers in our genes has not stopped them looking. This history offers important context to understanding mental health science today.
UNASSIGNED: This article explores the main themes in research on genetics and inheritance in psychiatry from the second half of the nineteenth century to the present day, to address the question: what is the history of genetics as a causative explanation in mental health science? We take a critical historical approach to the literature, interrogating primary and secondary material for the light it brings to the research question, while considering the social and historical context.
UNASSIGNED: We begin with the statistics gathered in asylums and used to \'prove\' the importance of heredity in mental ill health. We then move through early twentieth century Mendelian models of mental inheritance, the eugenics movement, the influence of social psychiatry, new classifications and techniques of the postwar era, the Human Genome Project and Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and epigenetics. Setting these themes in historical context shows that this research was often popular because of wider social, political and cultural issues, which impacted the views of scientists just as they did those of policymakers, journalists and the general public.
UNASSIGNED: We argue that attempting to unpick this complex history is essential to the modern ethics of mental health and genetics, as well as helping to focus our efforts to better understand causation in mental ill-health.For a succinct timeline of the history of psychiatric genetics, alongside the history of other proposed causes for mental ill-health, visit: https://historyofcauses.co.uk/.

The paper aims to understand the various legacies of eugenics in the postwar period to recognize both the continuities and discontinuities of eugenics with an approach which is both conceptually sound and historically correct. Building on earlier work of Lene Koch, the paper endeavours to chart the historical trajectory of eugenics by examining how its definition and those of its related or oppositional concepts have evolved within selected lexicon entries across various stages of the century. The inclusion and publication of a concept within a lexicon indicate its significance, linguistic vitality, and prevalence in public discourse. These entries serve as a window into the contemporary understanding and application of concepts over an entire century, offering insights into the practices of eugenics as interpreted by the authoritative scholars of the era. Additionally, these lexicon entries offer more than just a mirror to the past\'s prevailing attitudes. The very act of articulating a concept may be viewed as a pivotal element in social struggles, influencing the course of eugenic practices and their interpretations. Both conceptual history and discourse analysis share common ground in their perception of concepts, considering the use of language as a social activity endowed with performative capabilities. They recognize that language does not merely reflect reality but can actively shape it, playing a significant role in societal dynamics and power relations. The Hungarian lexicon entries on eugenics reveal notable disparities in the identified content, the periodization, and the evolution of changes when compared to Lene Koch\'s earlier study on Scandinavian eugenics. In Hungary, the concept of eugenics underwent significant changes over four successive periods. The history and interpretation of eugenics can vary significantly from one country to another. Different nations have had their unique experiences and trajectories with the eugenics movement, which have been shaped by their specific cultural, political, and social contexts. These variations emphasize the importance of considering the localized and historical perspectives when examining the concept of eugenics.

Highlighting the Distinguished Speakers Symposium on \"The Future of Human Genetics and Genomics,\" this collection of articles is based on presentations at the ASHG 2023 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, in celebration of all our field has accomplished in the past 75 years, since the founding of ASHG in 1948.

From an evolutionary point of view, organisms with mutations resulting in maladaptation are an unavoidable result of genetic variability, and they do not usually survive natural selection. Thus, they do not produce benefits for the species. I contend that this is different in humans at two levels. First, the existence of people with disability has been essential for human growth as a species. Human ancestors\' evolving cognitive and social abilities were boosted by caring for vulnerable members of the species, including premature offspring and people with disability. Therefore, caregiving was an essential trait of the evolution of humans, intertwined with the development of bipedalism, the hand, face, vocal apparatus, and brain. Second, caring for disability is also a source of growth at a personal level. Even though most scientific literature focuses on the stress and burden caused by caring for people with disability, there is solid evidence to accept caregiving as a source of happiness and flourishing for human beings. Hence, disability still has an essential role in improving human life nowadays. Contrary to this evidence, influential utilitarian bioethicists promote the elimination of disability from modern societies. Following the arguments presented here, this will lead to the withering of society. In conclusion, disability should be acknowledged as an essential source of growth for the human species.

This article analyzes the speeches of leading doctors in the creation of the specialty in childbirth care: gynecotology. Between 1920 and 1940, under the influence of eugenic and maternalist thinking, in a context of valuing the well-being of children, medicine built a new obstetric interventionism under the foundation of improving fetal viability. The supposed female \"maternal instinct\" was, thus, appealed to improve acceptance of the medical mandate. At the same time, doctors recognized their difficulties in providing adequate care. They did not wait long enough and tended to intervene in unnecessary physiological processes.
En este artículo se analizan discursos de médicos de referencia en la creación de la especialidad en la atención del parto: la ginecotocología. Entre 1920 y 1940, bajo la influencia del pensamiento eugenésico y maternalista, en un contexto de valorización del bienestar de la infancia, la medicina construyó un nuevo intervencionismo obstétrico bajo el fundamento de mejorar la viabilidad fetal. En ese marco se apeló al supuesto “instinto maternal” femenino para mejorar la aceptación del mandato médico. A la vez, los médicos reconocieron sus dificultades para asistir de forma adecuada. No esperaban el tiempo suficiente y tendían a intervenir más de lo necesario en procesos fisiológicos que no lo requerían.

In recent years, the history of human genetic counseling has increasingly become the subject of research in the history of medicine and science. In this article, I examine the establishment and design of human genetic counselling in the GDR from the 1960s until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, based on archive material and medical literature of the time. The initiative for the establishment of a genetic counselling service in the GDR originated in the 1960s and can be traced back to scientists with different political backgrounds who were concerned with human genetic problems. In the 1970s and 80s, a nationwide network of human genetic counseling centers was established. They were located at either university institutions or district hospitals. Despite the centralized control, there was a considerable difference between the individual districts. Both biologists and doctors practiced genetic counselling in the GDR. With their focus on single individuals or families and their rejection of any kind of coercion, human geneticists set themselves apart from the eugenic practices of the Nazi era. Nevertheless, they did not completely ignore population-genetic objectives, as was the case in the FRG. Human genetic counseling in the GDR did not differ from other, even non-socialist, states in its objectives, namely to prevent the birth of handicapped children and to promote the birth of healthy children. This intent was not prescribed by the state, but it reflected a social attitude that equated disability with suffering.

This text analyzes female participation in Brazilian eugenics and medical discourse on the roles and social functions of the sexes during the first half of the twentieth century. In examining the production of two women, Ítala Silva de Oliveira and Eunice Penna Kehl, we maintain that certain women were effectively engaged in the eugenics movement and worked to bring women closer to eugenics. This analysis makes it possible to explore a pedagogical dimension of eugenics and of the popularization of this movement by attempting to form a hygienist and eugenist consciousness among women.
O texto analisa a participação feminina na eugenia brasileira e os discursos médicos acerca dos papéis e funções sociais dos sexos na primeira metade do século XX. A partir da análise da produção de duas mulheres, Ítala Silva de Oliveira e Eunice Penna Kehl, o objetivo principal é argumentar que determinadas mulheres se engajaram efetivamente no movimento eugênico, trabalhando em prol da aproximação feminina com a eugenia. Tal análise permite explorar uma dimensão pedagógica e de popularização da eugenia por meio da tentativa de formação de uma consciência higiênica e eugênica nas mulheres.

Introduction  The early geneticist and psychiatrist Ernst Rüdin (1874-1952) became one of the key figures in the eugenics movement and in the German health system of the Nazi era. His connections in the international eugenics network have played an important role in the history of eugenics. Objective  To discuss the connections between Ernst Rüdin\'s scientific group in Munich and Otmar von Verschuer\'s group in Frankfurt during the Nazi era. Methods  Otorhinolaryngological materials from Ernst Rüdin\'s former private library are presented, and they show Rüdin\'s deep involvement in the international eugenics network. These materials provide insights into early medical genetics in otorhinolaryngology. Results  One result of the present study is that eugenics groups from Munich, Frankfurt, and New York certainly influenced one another in the field of otorhinolaryngology. Karlheinz Idelberger and Josef Mengele were two scientists who performed hereditary research on orofacial clefts. Later, Mengele became deeply involved in Nazi medical crimes. His former work on orofacial clefts clearly had, to some extent, an influence on subsequent studies. Conclusion  An international eugenics network already existed before 1933. However, it becomes clear that the weaknesses of many early genetic studies did not enable its authors to draw firm scientific conclusions, suggesting that scientists lacked an accurate concept of the genetic causes of most illnesses.

Medical dramas offer unique insights into the way popular media makes sense of genetic technology and the ethics of its applications. In this paper we evaluate the contrasting depictions in television medical dramas of reproductive genetic screening and eugenics-two medical themes that some commentators see as closely related. By conducting a content analysis of 32 episodes of doctor shows featuring eugenic and/or genetic screening themes, we put the medical drama landscape in conversation with bioethics scholarship and mark a significant divergence between the two. While the academic literature has been parsing the possible relationship between genetic screening and eugenics for over 50 years, doctor shows tend to champion genetic screening as a powerful tool for promoting individual reproductive choice and criticise eugenics as a socially unjust infringement of reproductive freedom. In doing so, medical dramas mark a subtle but important moral distinction between the population-level implications of eugenics and the highly personal, emotional impact of genetic screening.

For the past two decades anti-abortionists in the Global North have been aggressively instrumentalising disability in order to undermine women\'s social autonomy, asserting, falsely, there is an insuperable conflict between disability rights and reproductive rights. The utilisation of disability in struggles over abortion access is not new, it has a history dating back to the interwar era. Indeed, decades before anti-abortionists\' campaign, feminists invoked disability to expand access to safe abortion. This paper examines the feminist eugenics in the first organisation dedicated to liberalising restrictive abortion laws, the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA), established in England in 1936. ALRA played a vital role in the passage of the Abortion Act 1967 (or the Act) that greatly expanded the grounds for legal abortion, a hugely important gain for women in Britain and beyond seeking legal, safe abortions. In addition, the Act permitted eugenic abortion, which also had transnational effects: within a decade, jurisdictions in numerous Commonwealth countries passed abortion laws that incorporated the Act\'s eugenics clause, sometimes verbatim. This essay analyses ALRA\'s role in codifying eugenics in the Abortion Act 1967 and argues that from the outset, ALRA was simultaneously a feminist and eugenist association. Initially, ALRA prioritized their feminist commitment to \'voluntary motherhood\' in their campaign whereas starting in the 1940s, they subordinated feminism to negative eugenics, a shift that was simultaneously strategic and a reflection of genuine concern to prevent the birth of children with disabilities.