Quality and Quantity: The Quest for Biological Regeneration in Twentieth-Century France (Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine)

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 This book, first published in 2001, explains how eugenicists tried to bring about the biological regeneration of the French population. 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. This study examines how eugenics in early 20th-century France provided a broad cover for a variety of reform movements that attempted to bring about the biological regeneration of the French population In December 1941, Eugen Fischer, a leading anthropologist of the Nazi Reich, visited the occupied city of Paris.