Alfred Pischinger (1899-1983): An Austrian career in anatomy continuing through National Socialism to postwar leadership.

Despite intensified research efforts on the history of anatomy during National Socialism (NS), many aspects of this story still need further investigation. This study explores the life, work and politics of Alfred Pischinger, Chairman of the Institute for Embryology and Histology in Graz from 1936 to 1945, and in Vienna from 1958 to 1970, and is an addition to previous reports on careers in anatomy continuing through the Third Reich to the postwar period. Pischinger was an illegal NSDAP member in Austria, joined the SA in 1938, served as expert in racial hygiene, and as judge on the Genetic Health High Court of Graz. His research focus was histochemistry, but he became part of a scientific network at the University of Graz, which from 1939 on experimented on the bodies of pregnant women and their fetuses under the leadership of gynecologist Karl Ehrhardt. The researchers were among the many who took actively part in the complete exploitation and physical destruction of those considered to be "the enemy" by the NS regime. After the war, Pischinger received publicity for his work on the "scientific basis" of alternative and holistic approaches of medicine. His NS past and fetal experiments seem to have vanished from public knowledge. As systematic studies of the influence of the NS period on postwar medical education and the science of anatomy itself are still missing, this critical investigation of Alfred Pischinger's life within the relevant historic background aims to contribute to this body of knowledge.

Iberian eugenics? Cross-overs and contrasts between Spanish and Portuguese eugenics, 1930-1950

This article provides the basis for further considerations on the overlap between different expressions of science, in particular psychotechnics, biotypology and eugenics, in Iberia. It sets the reception of and interest in these scientific undertakings within the specific context pertaining in both Iberian dictatorships and considers the importance of the culture of the scientific community, the role of religion and the presence of positivism within each. While the actual traffic of knowledge between the two countries was limited, the contrasts and differences in the uptake of these specialisms within the two countries and their proximity or otherwise to other fascist and authoritarian regimes of the 1930s and 1940s are explored. The article concludes that in the Spanish case, although there were greater proximities to certain forms of fascist and Nazi eugenics, it was the commitment to Catholicism and nationalist regeneration that allowed for concessions to environmental improvements. A more Germanic strain was present in Portugal but this was dislodged by a consistent commitment to social hygiene rather than racial hygiene, again within the constraints provided by overarching Catholicism (AU)

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Iglesia católica y eugenesia latina: un constructo teórico para el control social (Argentina, 1924-1958) / Catholic church and latin eugenics: a theoretical construct for the social control (Argentina, 1924-1958)

Se abordan aquí interacciones entabladas entre ciencia y religión a través de la formulación de un saber particularmente influyente en el campo del poder, como fue el conformado en torno a una corriente de pensamiento eugénico. Nos referimos a la variante gestada desde la biotipología italiana para atender al control social impulsado por el fascismo y también por países como la Argentina donde llegó a sobrevivir en el tiempo más allá de la segunda posguerra. Esa versión eugénica, caracterizada por un encendido rechazo a cualquier acción pública o privada orientada a la esterilización humana - atento al mandato católico de no intervención sobre los cuerpos, gestión privativa de Dios - propició medidas también tendentes a acelerar una selección artificial vulnerando todo principio de igualdad humana. Tomando la postura oficial de la Iglesia católica ante la eugenesia, entre 1924 y 1958, su relación con la biotipología y la difusión en Argentina de la llamada eugenesia latina, en tanto expresión resultante de esa articulación entre ciencia y religión, se busca dar cuenta de la coexistencia en ese constructo de la identificación, clasificación, jerarquización y exclusión de individuos que caracteriza a todo planteo eugenésico, instrumentados merced a dispositivos coercitivos de índole ambiental (AU)

This paper discusses interactions between science and religion thorough the formulation of the Italian Biotipology, as knowledge very influential in the field of power. That ideology was created around a variant of the eugenic thinking for to give answers to the social control promoted by the fascism; and it was well accepted in different countries, as Argentina, for example. Here, it survived over several years beyond the World War II. The Biotipology was characterized by a strong repulse to any public or private action oriented to human sterilization. Indeed, we must remember that Catholic rules imposed the "no-intervention on the bodies", belonging only to God. On these corpus of ideas, the new Italian science prompted arrangements that attempt to accelerate the artificial selection breaking the human equality principle. Between 1924 and 1958, the Biotipology was the official Catholic doctrine about Eugenics and it was widespread in Argentina from the called Latin Eugenics. In this manner, the identification, classification, hierarchical structure and exclusion of some humans, were instrumented in this country by means of coercive and environmental devices (AU)

Cirugías fingidas en los Andes. A propósito de un pequeño corpus documental / Shammed surgeries in the Andes: concerning a small documental corpus

Si bien los pueblos andinos contemporáneos muestran un marcado rechazo a las intervenciones quirúrgicas por diversas razones de índole cultural, encontramos en los relatos coloniales de los siglos XVI y XVII descripciones que aluden a la expresión formal de cirugías simbólicas, bajo trance, que persiguen la extracción corporal de los objetos y sustancias que materializan la enfermedad. El artículo analiza varias de estas intervenciones fingidas comparándolas con las actuales estrategias terapéuticas de corte chamánico que realizan los curanderos andinos (AU)

Even when contemporary Andean peoples show a strong rejection to surgical interventions due to cultural reasons, in 16th- and 17th-century colonial sources we find acounts that describe the formal expression of symbolic surgical interventions (carried out while in trance) that aim to extract from the body those objects and substances that materialize the ailment. This article analyzes some of these mock interventions and compares them with current shamanic therapeutical strategies carried out by Andean healers (AU)

The biologist as psychologist: Henry Fairfield Osborn's early mental ability investigations.

In the early 1880s, biologist Henry Fairfield Osborn conducted some of the first questionnaire research in American psychology. This article details how he came to distribute Francis Galton's questionnaire on mental imagery in the United States, as well as how he altered it to suit his own burgeoning psychological research interests. The development and circulation of questionnaires at the very beginning of American scientific psychology, first by Osborn and later by G. Stanley Hall, is discussed in terms of the new psychology's often-overlooked methodological plurality. Further, Osborn's late nineteenth century interest in individual variation and group differences in mental imagery ability are discussed in relation to his pervasive educational and social concerns, as well as his eventual status as a prominent eugenicist in the twentieth century United States. This research into mental imagery ability foreshadows the eugenic-oriented intelligence testing that developed in the early twentieth century.

Eugenics concept: from Plato to present.

All prospective studies and purposes to improve cure and create a race that would be exempt of various diseases and disabilities are generally defined as eugenic procedures. They aim to create the "perfect" and "higher" human being by eliminating the "unhealthy" prospective persons. All of the supporting actions taken in order to enable the desired properties are called positive eugenic actions; the elimination of undesired properties are defined as negative eugenics. In addition, if such applications and approaches target the public as a whole, they are defined as macro-eugenics. On the other hand, if they only aim at individuals and/or families, they are called micro-eugenics. As generally acknowledged, Galton re-introduced eugenic proposals, but their roots stretch as far back as Plato. Eugenic thoughts and developments were widely accepted in many different countries beginning with the end of the 19th to the first half of the 20th centuries. Initially, the view of negative eugenics that included compulsory sterilizations of handicapped, diseased and "lower" classes, resulted in tens of thousands being exterminated especially in the period of Nazi Germany. In the 1930s, the type of micro positive eugenics movement found a place within the pro-natalist policies of a number of countries. However, it was unsuccessful since the policy was not able to become effective enough and totally disappeared in the 1960s. It was no longer a fashionable movement and left a deep impression on public opinion after the long years of war. However, developments in genetics and its related fields have now enabled eugenic thoughts to reappear under the spotlight and this is creating new moral dilemmas from an ethical perspective.

Los bordes y límites de la eugenesia, donde caen las razas superiores: Argentina, primera mitad del siglo XX / The borders and limits of the eugenics, where the superiors races fall

Trata de los bordes y límites de la eugenesia, en Argentina, en la primera mitad del siglo XX

Cuerpo y representación: la imagen del hombre en la eugenesia latina / Body and representation: the image of man in Latin eugenics

Trata del cuestión relativas la cuerpo y representación.

Cuerpo y representación: la imagen del hombre en la eugenesia latina / Body and representation: the image of man in Latin eugenics

Trata del cuestión relativas la cuerpo y representación. (AU)

Los bordes y límites de la eugenesia, donde caen las razas superiores (Argentina, primera mitad del siglo XX) / The borders and limits of the eugenics, where the superiors races fall

Trata de los bordes y límites de la eugenesia, en Argentina, en la primera mitad del siglo XX.

Johannes Heinrich Schultz and National Socialism.

BACKGROUND: Johannes Heinrich Schultz (1884-1970) established the set of techniques known as "autogenic training." From 1936 until 1945 he worked as assistant director of the Göring Institute. His role during National Socialism has been underestimated in our opinion. METHOD: We considered Schultz's academic publications and his "autobiography" from 1964. RESULTS: Schultz publicly advocated compulsory sterilization as well as the "annihilation of life unworthy of life" and developed a diagnostic scheme which distinguished between the neurotic/curable and the hereditary/ incurable. In fact, this classification was then employed to decide between life and death. In order to justify the "New German Psychotherapy" alongside eugenic psychiatry, Schultz carried out degrading and inhuman "treatments" of homosexual prisoners of concentration camps who were in mortal danger. LIMITATIONS: This study was based on written documents. We were not able to interview contemporary witnesses. CONCLUSION: By advocating compulsory sterilization and the "annihilation of life unworthy of life" and by the abuse of homosexuals as research objects Schultz violated fundamental ethical principles of psychiatry.

Males y remedios de la ciudad moderna: perspectivas ambientales de la eugenesia argetina de entre guerras / Diseases and remedies in modern city: environmental perspectives of argentinian eugenism between the mundial wars

Durante el período de entreguerras se consolidó en Argentina una tendencia a patologizar la ciudad moderna, entendida como un organismo enfermo que producía y a su vez era consecuencia de la decadencia física y moral de sus habitantes. La interrupción de la inmigración externa aportó nuevos datos para una estrategia de regeneración que pugnó por establecer, desde la eugenesia, medidas dirigidas a articular el poblacionismo con la distribución territorial, en la certeza de que el campo contrarrestaría los males que generaba la vida moderna. El trabajo repasa el impacto de esta ideología en distintas esferas y el modo en que ella se recepcionó junto a la política cultural del fascismo y formó parte del corpus con el que la biotipología buscó darle legitimidad científica

During the inter - war period it consolidate in Argentina a tendency to pathologize the moderncity, understood like an ill organism that produced and was consequence phisical and moral decadency of its habitants. The interruption of external inmigration contributed with new information for a strategy of regeneration that tried to establish from eugenesics directed to articulate the populationism with the territorial distribution, in the certainty that counteracted country the evils that generated the life modern. The work reviews the impact of this ideology in the different spheres and the way in which has integrated the cultural politic of the fascism and taked part of the corpus with which the biotipology looked to give scientific legitimacy

Males y remedios de la ciudad moderna: perspectivas ambientales de la eugenesia argentina de entreguerras / Diseases and drugs in modern city: environmental perspectives of interwar Argentinean eugenics

Repasa el impacto de una estrategia de regeneración en distintas esferas y el modo en que ella se recepcionó junto a la política cultural del fascismo y formó parte del corpus con el que la biotipología buscó darle legitimidad científica.(AU)

Biotypology, endocrinology, and sterilization: the practice of eugenics in the treatment of argentinian women during the 1930s

Looks at medical approaches to women's fertility in Argentina in the 1930s and explores the ways in which eugenics encouraged the reproduction of the fit and attempted to avoid the reproduction of the unfit. The analysis concentrates on three main aspects: biotypology (the scientific classification of bodies), endocrine therapy, and sterilization. The article concludes by suggesting that a eugenically oriented obstetrical and gynecological practice encouraged both endocrine treatments (to achieve the ideal fertile woman) and sterilization, which, in spite of being legally banned, found a subtle application. (AU)

[Three historical examples of eugenics before Galton (1883): Plato, Soranus and Vandermonde (part II)]. / Trois exemples historiques d'eugénisme avant Galton (1883) : Platon, Soranos, & Vandermonde (II ème partie).

The first part of this paper explored the origins of the idea of Eugenics in Plato's work in the 4th Century BC. This second part looks at the development of the concept, notably in the writings of Soranus of Ephesus in Rome in the 1st century AD and Charles-Augustin Vandermonde, a French doctor of the 18th Century, before it was described and named by Francis Galton in 1883. We will be reminded that these three separate glimpses into the prehistory of Eugenics do not demonstrate a logically linked continuum, but do show a long-standing preoccupation with controlling life.

[Three historical examples of eugenics before Galton (1883): Plato, Soranus and Vandermonde (part 1)]. / Trois exemples historiques d'eugénisme avant Galton (1883) Platon, Soranos & Vandermonde (l ère partie).

There is a pre-history of Eugenics as well as a history. Although the concept was introduced by Galton in 1883, there were, before this, numerous texts, both philosophical and medical, which put forward theories aimed at standardising or improving man. From Ancient Greek times to the Enlightenment of the 18th Century, many authors have wished to influence human reproduction, to improve results. Plato in Athens, Soranus of Ephesus in Rome and Charles-Augustin Vandermonde in Paris are three examples from this pre-history of Eugenics. This article is published in two parts, with the second in the next edition of the journal.

Mestizofilia, biotipología y eugenesia en el México post-revolucionario: hacia una historia de la ciencia y el Estado, 1920-1960 / Mestizophilia, biotypology and engenics in post-revolutionary México: for a history of science and the State, 1920-1960

Explora las ideas sobre el mestizaje en el Mexico posrevolucionario. Discute no sólo los discursos sobre la raza y su tono racialista antes que racista sino también las características del pensamiento demográfico mexicano y sus similitudes y diferencias con el de la Italia fascista y el de los Estdos Unidos en tiempos de su emergente Estado Asistencialista.