Claudius F. Mayer: From Plato to Pope Paul / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 17. (Budapest, 1989)
An immensely interesting field of human genetics is the study of the extinction of races, 46 6 and the scrutiny of genetic practices and cultural factors of the peoples who are about io vanish. 46 7 With the exception of the Chinese nation, all pre-Christian culture peoples declined and deteriorated, sank to a lower cultural level, or disappeared completely. 46 8 Several races, or a great number of them, have disappeared within historical time. 46 9 The chief factors of racial decline and extinction have been always the same: —decrease in birth rate, infanticide, reduced fertility rate, and reduced viability of the offspring, which may be due to inbreeding and to cousin marriages. 470 Unless these peoples remain in isolation, and successfully resist the influence of modern civilization, they will lose their identity, and will dissolve into the nondescript mass of overall population. 47 1 IX. EUGENIC AWAKENING PATHOLOGY OF HEREDITY, PROSPER LUCAS, AND EUGENIC THINKING At the beginning of the 19th cent, heredopathology was considerably advanced in theory, 47 2 and physicians also offered some practical advices for proper mate selection in order to avoid hereditary diseases. 47 3 In addition to a 1748 prize set by the Academy of Dijon for an essay on hereditary diseases, 47 4 in 1787 the Royal Society of Medicine also offered a prize for a study which would clarify 1. whether hereditary diseases exist, and 2. whether they can be stopped and treated in their development. But in general, this kind of literature was of a very modest volume 47 5 in the first half of the 19th cent. Among the practical measures, it was suggested that marriage with country boys or girls would improve the race, and could even wipe out hereditary defects 47 6 in the third or fourth generation. The heredity of mental diseases was also strongly asserted and studied on a statistical basis. 47 7 Still struggling with the new problems created in natural philosophy by the discoveries of the preceding two centuries, the period was also a politically and socially very stormy era with continuous wars and recurrent revolutions in most European countries. This was the stage and set for the pioneer work of a French psychiatrist, Prosper LUCAS (1808-1885) whose "Philosophic and Physiologic Treatise on Natural Heredity" 47 8 served as the basic inspiration for many mid-19th cent, students of human genetics and eugenics, so much so that Prosper LUCAS ought to be resurrected, and placed upon a pedestal as the true founder of human genetics. Prosper LUCAS was born in St. Brieuc in 1808. 47 9 During his student years he wrote a paper (1831) on " The freedom of education''', 48 0 and graduated as a medical doctor in Paris in 1833 with the thesis: "Contagious imitation , or symphatic propagation of neuroses and single manias." 48 1 Afterwards he started to work as a psychiatrist in the Bicetre and in the Saiñte Anne asylum. The publication of his main work 482 (which includes about 14 years of experience) became the starting point and source for all other studies that appeared on the question of heredity, including the publi23
