“Une plus brillante moisson de citoyens sains et robustes”: Eugenic Discourses in French Canada (1902–10)

Abstract

The Association des médecins de langue française d’Amérique du Nord (AMLFAN) was founded in Québec at the turn of the twentieth century. The physicians who convened at the Association between 1902 and 1910 shared a concern for the degeneration of the French-Canadian “race” under the effects of alcoholism, tuberculosis, and syphilis. For hygienists such as Arthur Rousseau and Charles-Narcisse Valin, this state of degeneration called for hygienic measures that would help regenerate and improve the French-Canadian race. While their suggestion that marriages be matched scientifically in order to prevent the transmission of hereditary and acquired defects from parent to offspring may be reminiscent of eugenics, French-Canadian physicians seemed to have no knowledge of Sir Francis Galton – eugenics’ “founding father” – and his work on the topic. This article compares French-Canadian eugenic discourses with Galtonian eugenics in order to shed light on the particularities of the French-Canadian case.