Halting the 'sad degenerationist parade': medical concerns about heredity and racial degeneracy in New Zealand psychiatry, 1853-99.

Journal: Health and history

Volume: 14

Issue: 1

Year of Publication: 2012

Affiliated Institutions:  University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Abstract summary 

Historians have focused on early twentieth-century positive eugenics in New Zealand In this article, I argue that the response came from a tradition of concern about heredity and white racial degeneracy, which extended beyond the British Empire. This article focuses on concerns about heredity at the Auckland Mental Hospital between 1850 and 1899, and contextualises these concerns in New Zealand mental hospital statistics from the late-nineteenth century. This article also considers Australasian, British, North and South American medical and immigration legislation history, and contrasts this with the legislation and medical discourses which formed part of a fear of heredity, racial degeneracy, immigration and mental illness in New Zealand.

Authors & Co-authors:  Dawson Maree M

Study Outcome 

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Statistics
Citations : 
Authors :  1
Identifiers
Doi : 
SSN : 1442-1771
Study Population
Male,Female
Mesh Terms
Americas
Other Terms
Study Design
Cross Sectional Study
Study Approach
Country of Study
Publication Country
Australia