Lucien Howe, Hereditary Blindness, and the Eugenics Movement

The introduction of blindness into the Sterilization Law passed by the Nazis in July 1933, was exceptional, even by the standards of the time. Prior sterilization bills had focused on mental and nervous disorders, and they almost always excluded blindness as a category. The wish to sterilize the blind cannot be explained solely as stemming from the eugenic or economic threat that they allegedly posed to German society; such threats were acknowledged to be marginal, and they paled in comparison to the perceived menace attributed to the so-called feeble-minded and mentally ill. What made blindness of special significance for Nazi lawmakers was its disciplinary status among geneticists as an indisputable demonstration of the validity of the laws of heredity to human maladies. Together with two additional disease categories—deafness and Huntington's chorea—blindness provided Nazi legislators with scientific legitimization that helped pave the way for the sterilization of the mentally ill. For the blind, it was therefore not the fanaticism of the Nazis but rather their aspiration to ground their policy in biological teaching that ultimately proved fateful.

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When Harvard Said No to Eugenics: The J. Ewing Mears Bequest, 1927

Lombardo¹

2014

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James Ewing Mears (1838–1919) was a founding member of the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery. His 1910 book, The Problem of Race Betterment , laid the groundwork for later authors to explore the uses of surgical sterilization as a eugenic measure. Mears left $60,000 in his will to Harvard University to support the teaching of eugenics. Although numerous eugenic activists were on the Harvard faculty, and two of its Presidents were also associated with the eugenics movement, Harvard refused the Mears gift. The bequest was eventually awarded to Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. This article explains why Harvard turned its back on a donation that would have supported instruction in a popular subject. Harvard’s decision illustrates the range of opinion that existed on the efficacy of eugenic sterilization at the time. The Mears case also highlights a powerful irony: the same week Harvard turned down the Mears legacy, the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed eugenic sterilization in the landmark case of Buck v. Bell . Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., graduate of Harvard and former member of its law faculty wrote the opinion in that case, including the famous conclusion: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

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Lucien Howe, Hereditary Blindness, and the Eugenics Movement

Cited by 3 publications

References 12 publications

The eyes of the angel of death: Ophthalmic experiments of Josef Mengele

The eyes of the angel of death: Ophthalmic experiments of Josef Mengele

Why Did the Nazis Sterilize the Blind? Genetics and the Shaping of the Sterilization Law of 1933

When Harvard Said No to Eugenics: The J. Ewing Mears Bequest, 1927

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