Social degeneration

<h2 id="theories-of-degeneration-in-the-18th-century">Theories of degeneration in the 18th century</h2>
In the second half of the eighteenth century, degeneration theory gained prominence as an explanation of the nature and origin of human difference. Among the most notable proponents of this theory was <a href="/facts/Georges-Louis_Leclerc,_Comte_de_Buffon/9LqPhlul">Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon</a>. A gifted mathematician and eager naturalist, Buffon served as the curator of the Parisian <a href="/facts/Jardin_des_plantes/3EloLngE">Cabinet du Roi</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10">10</a> The collections of the Cabinet du Roi served as the inspiration for Buffon's encyclopedic <a href="/facts/Histoire_Naturelle/6dyaIrJx">Histoire Naturelle</a>, of which he published thirty-six volumes between 1749 and his death in 1788.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11">11</a> In the Histoire Naturelle, Buffon asserted that differences in climate created variety within species.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12">12</a> He believed that these changes occurred gradually and initially affected only a few individuals before becoming widespread.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13">13</a> Buffon relied on an argument from analogy to contend that this process of degeneration occurred among humans.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14">14</a> He claimed to have observed the transformation of certain animals by their climate and concluded that such changes must have also shaped humankind.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:15" href="#fn:15">15</a>
Buffon maintained that degeneration had particularly adverse consequences in the New World. He believed America to be both colder and wetter than Europe.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:16" href="#fn:16">16</a> This climate limited the number of species in the New World and prompted a decline in size and vigor among the animals which did survive.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:17" href="#fn:17">17</a> Buffon also applied these principles to the people of the New World. He wrote in the Histoire Naturelle that the indigenous people lacked the ability to feel strong emotions for others.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:18" href="#fn:18">18</a> For Buffon, these individuals were incapable of love as well as desire.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:19" href="#fn:19">19</a>
Buffon's theory of degeneration attracted the ire of many early American elites who feared that Buffon's depiction of the New World would negatively influence European perceptions of their nation.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:20" href="#fn:20">20</a> In particular, <a href="/facts/Thomas_Jefferson/8yxtcjKK">Thomas Jefferson</a> mounted a vigorous defense of the American natural world. He attacked the premises of Buffon's argument in his 1785 <a href="/facts/Notes_on_the_State_of_Virginia/JjTQTN4b">Notes on the State of Virginia</a>, writing that the animals of the New World felt the same sun and walked upon the same soil as their European counterparts.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:21" href="#fn:21">21</a> Jefferson believed that he could permanently alter Buffon's views of the New World by showing him firsthand the majesty of American wildlife.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:22" href="#fn:22">22</a> While serving as minister to France, Jefferson wrote repeatedly to his compatriots in the United States, pleading with them to send a stuffed moose to Paris.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:23" href="#fn:23">23</a> After months of effort, <a href="/facts/John_Sullivan_(general)/eMtT7Rao">General John Sullivan</a> responded to Jefferson's request and shipped a moose to France.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:24" href="#fn:24">24</a> Buffon died only three months after the moose's arrival, and his theory of New World degeneration remained forever preserved in the pages of the Histoire Naturelle.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:25" href="#fn:25">25</a>
In the years following Buffon's death, the theory of degeneration gained a number of new followers, many of whom were concentrated in German-speaking lands. The anatomist and naturalist <a href="/facts/Johann_Friedrich_Blumenbach/J1S7PSDj">Johann Friedrich Blumenbach</a> praised Buffon in his lectures at the <a href="/facts/University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen/UTUodvX1">University of Göttingen</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:26" href="#fn:26">26</a> He adopted Buffon's theory of degeneration in his dissertation De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa. The central premise of this work was that all of mankind belonged to the same species.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:27" href="#fn:27">27</a> Blumenbach believed that a multitude of factors, including climate, air, and the strength of the sun, promoted degeneration and resulted in external differences between human beings.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:28" href="#fn:28">28</a> However, he also asserted that these changes could easily be undone and, thus, did not constitute the basis for speciation.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:29" href="#fn:29">29</a> In the essay "Über Menschen-Rassen und Schweine-Rassen", Blumenbach clarified his understanding of the relationship between different human races by calling upon the example of the pig.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:30" href="#fn:30">30</a> He contended that, if the domestic pig and the wild boar were seen as belonging to the same species, then different humans, regardless of skin color or height, must too belong to the same species.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:31" href="#fn:31">31</a> For Blumenbach, all people of the world existed as different gradations on a spectrum.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:32" href="#fn:32">32</a> Nevertheless, the third edition of De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa, published in 1795, is famed among scholars for its introduction of a system of racial classification which divided humans into members of the Caucasian, Ethiopian, Mongolian, Malayan, or American races.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:33" href="#fn:33">33</a>
Blumenbach's views on degeneration emerged in dialogue with the works of other thinkers concerned with race and origin in the late eighteenth century. In particular, Blumenbach participated in fruitful intellectual exchange with another prominent German scholar of his age, <a href="/facts/Immanuel_Kant/vIxjdy6I">Immanuel Kant</a>. Kant, a philosopher and professor at the <a href="/facts/University_of_K%C3%B6nigsberg/3NL3eavc">University of Königsberg</a>, taught a course on physical geography for some forty years, fostering an interest in biology and taxonomy.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:34" href="#fn:34">34</a> Like Blumenbach, Kant engaged closely with the writings of Buffon while developing his position on these subjects.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:35" href="#fn:35">35</a>
In his 1777 essay Von der verschiedenen Racen der Menschen, Kant expressed the belief that all humans shared a common origin. He called upon the ability of humans to interbreed as evidence for this assertion.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:36" href="#fn:36">36</a> Additionally, Kant introduced the term "degeneration", which he defined as hereditary differences between groups with a shared root.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:37" href="#fn:37">37</a> Kant also arrived at a meaning of "race" from this definition of degeneration.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:38" href="#fn:38">38</a> He claimed that races developed when degenerations were preserved over a long period of time.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:39" href="#fn:39">39</a> A group could only constitute a race if breeding with a different degeneration resulted in "intermediate offspring."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:40" href="#fn:40">40</a> Although Kant advocated for a theory of shared human origin, he also contended that there was an innate hierarchy between existing races. In 1788, Kant wrote "Über den Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:41" href="#fn:41">41</a> He maintained in this work that a human's place in nature was determined by the amount of sweat the individual produced, which revealed an innate ability to survive.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:42" href="#fn:42">42</a> Sweat emerged from the skin. Therefore, skin color indicated important distinctions between humans.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:43" href="#fn:43">43</a>

<h2 id="history">History</h2>

The concept of degeneration arose during the European <a href="/facts/Age_of_Enlightenment/Uj2Fa8Mk">enlightenment</a> and the <a href="/facts/Industrial_revolution/B6E3Fasm">industrial revolution</a> – a period of profound <a href="/facts/Social_change/koLr0mLY">social change</a> and a rapidly shifting sense of <a href="/facts/Personal_identity/HRfyp7qh">personal identity</a>. Several influences were involved.
The first related to the extreme demographic upheavals, including <a href="/facts/Urbanization/GQq0oqft">urbanization</a>, in the early years of the 19th century. The disturbing experience of <a href="/facts/Social_change/koLr0mLY">social change</a> and urban <a href="/facts/Crowd_psychology/kG2ksW8C">crowds</a>, largely unknown in the agrarian 18th century, was recorded in the journalism of <a href="/facts/William_Cobbett/A9Mlxqc1">William Cobbett</a>, the novels of <a href="/facts/Charles_Dickens/B54mQHJs">Charles Dickens</a> and in the paintings of <a href="/facts/J._M._W._Turner/Q5nVxsqm">J. M. W. Turner</a>. These changes were also explored by early writers on social psychology, including <a href="/facts/Gustav_Le_Bon/aLlqSLA4">Gustav Le Bon</a> and <a href="/facts/Georg_Simmel/5BXHr4mT">Georg Simmel</a>. The psychological impact of industrialisation is comprehensively described in <a href="/facts/Humphrey_Jennings/Sq0JTFkT">Humphrey Jennings</a>' masterly anthology <a href="/facts/Pandaemonium_(history_book)/AnU03JFN">Pandaemonium 1660 – 1886</a>. Victorian social reformers including <a href="/facts/Edwin_Chadwick/xJt0eaA6">Edwin Chadwick</a>, <a href="/facts/Henry_Mayhew/uRS7YBjC">Henry Mayhew</a> and <a href="/facts/Charles_Booth_(philanthropist)/0rQsMet7">Charles Booth</a> voiced concerns about the "<a href="/facts/Urban_squalor/NboD5tJK">decline</a>" of <a href="/facts/Public_health/4563Kre9">public health</a> in the urban life of the British <a href="/facts/Working_class/vX7fPNBo">working class</a>, arguing for improved housing and sanitation, access to parks and recreational facilities, an improved diet and a reduction in alcohol intake. These contributions from the public health perspective were discussed by the Scottish physician Sir <a href="/facts/James_Cantlie/AMA7fDc1">James Cantlie</a> in his influential 1885 lecture Degeneration Amongst Londoners. The novel experience of everyday contact with the urban working classes gave rise to a kind of horrified fascination with their perceived reproductive energies which appeared to threaten <a href="/facts/Middle_class/6EUq9Mue">middle-class</a> culture.
Secondly, the <a href="/facts/Proto-evolutionary_biologist/Ah1RKqf0">proto-evolutionary biology</a> and transformatist speculations of <a href="/facts/Jean-Baptiste_Lamarck/3lxaPmqM">Jean-Baptiste Lamarck</a> and other natural historians—taken together with the <a href="/facts/Georges_Cuvier/4mmE7NzN">Baron von Cuvier</a>'s theory of extinctions—played an important part in establishing a sense of the unsettled aspects of the natural world. The <a href="/facts/Polygenism/YWcnS8Lz">polygenic</a> theories of multiple human origins, supported by <a href="/facts/Robert_Knox_(surgeon)/QnRa5wll">Robert Knox</a> in his book The Races of Men, were firmly rejected by <a href="/facts/Charles_Darwin/uwDLGItY">Charles Darwin</a> who, following <a href="/facts/James_Cowles_Prichard/LUXIj6Po">James Cowles Prichard</a>, generally agreed on a single African origin for the entire human species.
Thirdly, the development of world trade and <a href="/facts/Colonialism/kvqx2DaV">colonialism</a>, the early European experience of <a href="/facts/Globalization/0locjSHH">globalization</a>, resulted in an awareness of the varieties of cultural expression and the vulnerabilities of Western civilization.
Fourthly, medical doctors of the time could diagnose <a href="/facts/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome/FWR4hdf7">fetal alcohol syndrome</a> and <a href="/facts/Congenital_syphilis/5oCKt60X">congenital syphilis</a>, and not absurdly come to the conclusion that behavioral problems can be inherited by offspring.
Finally, the growth of historical scholarship in the 18th century, exemplified by <a href="/facts/Edward_Gibbon/D3r8xdXp">Edward Gibbon</a>'s <a href="/facts/The_History_of_the_Decline_and_Fall_of_The_Roman_Empire/tPWxPtdk">The History of the Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire</a> (1776–1789), excited a renewed interest in the narratives of historical decline. This resonated uncomfortably with the difficulties of French political life in the post-revolutionary nineteenth century.
Degeneration theory achieved a detailed articulation in <a href="/facts/B%C3%A9n%C3%A9dict_Morel/Hpkq50pg">Bénédict Morel</a>'s Treatise on Degeneration of the Human Species (1857), a complicated work of clinical commentary from an asylum in Normandy (Saint Yon in <a href="/facts/Rouen/o4noeA7S">Rouen</a>) which, in the popular imagination at least, coalesced with de <a href="/facts/Gobineau/HutI9b7o">Gobineau</a>'s Essay on The Inequality of the Human Races (1855). Morel's concept of mental degeneration – in which he believed that intoxication and addiction in one generation of a family would lead to hysteria, epilepsy, sexual perversions, insanity, learning disability and sterility in subsequent generations – is an example of Lamarckian biological thinking, and Morel's medical discussions are reminiscent of the clinical literature surrounding <a href="/facts/Syphilis/fdnGLyLT">syphilitic infection</a> (syphilography). Morel's psychiatric theories were taken up and advocated by his friend <a href="/facts/Philippe_Buchez/GD3xlgrJ">Philippe Buchez</a>, and through his political influence became an official doctrine in French legal and administrative medicine.
<a href="/facts/Arthur_de_Gobineau/HutI9b7o">Arthur de Gobineau</a> came from an impoverished family (with a domineering and adulterous mother) which claimed an aristocratic ancestry; he was a failed author of historical romances, and his wife was widely rumored to be a Créole from <a href="/facts/Martinique/HTwzANWx">Martinique</a>. De Gobineau nevertheless argued that the course of history and civilization was largely determined by ethnic factors, and that <a href="/facts/Interracial_marriage/ICc2byUm">interracial marriage</a> ("<a href="/facts/Miscegenation/MfpRnrJn">miscegenation</a>") resulted in social chaos. De Gobineau built a successful career in the French diplomatic service, living for extended periods in Iran and Brazil, and spent his later years travelling through Europe, lamenting his mistreatment at the hands of his wife and daughters. He died of a heart attack in 1882 while boarding a train in Turin. His work was well received in German translation—not least by the composer <a href="/facts/Richard_Wagner/XoFH4v69">Richard Wagner</a>—and the leading German psychiatrist <a href="/facts/Emil_Kraepelin/tlEHWQUb">Emil Kraepelin</a> later wrote extensively on the dangers posed by degeneration to the German people. De Gobineau's writings exerted an enormous influence on the thinkers antecedent to the <a href="/facts/Third_Reich/8kRbqRpo">Third Reich</a> – although they are curiously free of anti-Semitic prejudice. Quite different historical factors inspired the Italian <a href="/facts/Cesare_Lombroso/FgTx2LWC">Cesare Lombroso</a> in his work on criminal anthropology with the notion of atavistic retrogression, probably shaped by his experiences as a young army doctor in <a href="/facts/Calabria/n9602l3b">Calabria</a> during the risorgimento.
In Britain, degeneration received a scientific formulation from <a href="/facts/Ray_Lankester/sffTH0xV">Ray Lankester</a> whose detailed discussions of the biology of <a href="/facts/Parasitism/HWPcgky7">parasitism</a> were hugely influential; the poor physical condition of many <a href="/facts/British_Army/StuY9Jy2">British Army</a> recruits for the <a href="/facts/Second_Boer_War/LSEc1IgQ">Second Boer War</a> (1899–1902) led to alarm in government circles. Psychiatrist <a href="/facts/Henry_Maudsley/khtQUUcI">Henry Maudsley</a> initially argued that degenerate family lines would die out with little social consequence, but later became more pessimistic about the effects of degeneration on the general population;<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:44" href="#fn:44">44</a> Maudsley also warned against the use of the term "degeneration" in a vague and indiscriminate way. Anxieties in Britain about the perils of degeneration found legislative expression in the <a href="/facts/Mental_Deficiency_Act_1913/qDeRWzYE">Mental Deficiency Act 1913</a> which gained strong support from <a href="/facts/Winston_Churchill/Wm8LXNzH">Winston Churchill</a>, then a senior member of the Liberal government.
In the <a href="/facts/Fin-de-si%C3%A8cle/rdx9BN6z">fin-de-siècle</a> period, <a href="/facts/Max_Nordau/Yre9YDHz">Max Nordau</a> scored an unexpected success with his bestselling <a href="/facts/Degeneration_(Nordau)/AnTWFJdY">Degeneration</a> (1892). <a href="/facts/Sigmund_Freud/KKIYbom9">Sigmund Freud</a> met Nordau in 1885 while he was studying in Paris and was notably unimpressed by him and hostile to the degeneration concept. Degeneration fell from popular and fashionable favor around the time of the First World War, although some of its preoccupations persisted in the writings of the <a href="/facts/Eugenicists/e7w6aSUV">eugenicists</a> and <a href="/facts/Social_Darwinists/LwLkddXI">social Darwinists</a> (for example, <a href="/facts/R._Austin_Freeman/7Y355fEz">R. Austin Freeman</a>; <a href="/facts/Anthony_Ludovici/mEGxF8FN">Anthony Ludovici</a>; <a href="/facts/Rolf_Gardiner/HcItHys8">Rolf Gardiner</a>; and see also <a href="/facts/Dennis_Wheatley/oLVBoA3m">Dennis Wheatley</a>'s Letter to posterity). <a href="/facts/Oswald_Spengler/RG767gfM">Oswald Spengler</a>'s <a href="/facts/The_Decline_of_the_West/6jSh1ckX">The Decline of the West</a> (1919) captured something of the degenerationist spirit in the aftermath of the war.

<h2 id="psychology-and-emil-kraepelin">Psychology and Emil Kraepelin</h2>
Degeneration theory is, at its heart, a way of thinking, and something that is taught, not innate. A major influence on the theory was Emil Kraepelin, lining up degeneration theory with his psychiatry practice. The central idea of this concept was that in "degenerative" illness, there is a steady decline in mental functioning and social adaptation from one generation to the other. For example, there might be an intergenerational development from nervous character to major depressive disorder, to overt psychotic illness and, finally, to severe and chronic cognitive impairment, something akin to dementia.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:45" href="#fn:45">45</a> This theory was advanced decades before the rediscovery of Mendelian genetics and their application to medicine in general and to psychiatry in particular. Kraepelin and his colleagues mostly derived from degeneration theory broadly. He rarely made a specific references to the theory of degeneration, and his attitude towards degeneration theory was not straightforward. Positive, but more ambivalent. The concept of disease, especially chronic mental disease fit very well into this framework insofar these phenomena were regarded as signs of an evolution in the wrong direction, as a degenerative process which diverts from the usual path of nature.
However, he remained skeptical of over-simplistic versions of this concept: While commenting approvingly on the basic ideas of Cesare Lombroso's "criminal anthropology",<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:46" href="#fn:46">46</a> he did not accept the popular idea of overt "stigmata of degeneration", by which individual persons could be identified as being "degenerated" simply by their physical appearance. While Kraepelin and his colleagues may not have focused on this, it did not stop others from advancing the converse idea.
An early application of this theory was the Mental Deficiency Act supported by Winston Churchill in 1913.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:47" href="#fn:47">47</a>[not specific enough to verify] This entailed placing those deemed "idiots" into separate colonies, and included those who showed sign of a "degeneration". While this did apply to those with mental disorders of a psychiatric nature, the execution was not always in the same vein, as some of the language was used to those "morally weak", or deemed "idiots". The belief in the existence of degeneration helped foster a sense that a sense of negative energy was inexplicable and was there to find sources of "rot" in society.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:48" href="#fn:48">48</a> This forwarded the notion the idea that society was structured in a way that produced regression, an outcome of the "darker side of progress".
Those who had developed the label of "degenerate" as a means of qualifying difference in a negative manner could use the idea that this "darker side of progress" was inevitable by having the idea society could "rot". Considerations to the pervasiveness of an allegedly superior condition were, during the nineteenth century, frighteningly reinforced in the language and habits of this destructive thinking.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:49" href="#fn:49">49</a>

<h2 id="as-dark-side-of-progress">As "dark side" of progress</h2>
See also: <a href="/facts/Devolution_(biology)/aSu2BzXU">Devolution (biology)</a>
 
The idea of progress was at once a social, political and scientific theory. The theory of evolution, as described in Darwin's The Origin of Species, provided for many social theorists the necessary scientific foundation for the idea of social and political progress. The terms evolution and progress were often used interchangeably in the 19th century.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:50" href="#fn:50">50</a>
According to the theory of degeneration, a host of individual and social pathologies in a finite network of diseases, disorders and moral habits could be explained by a biologically based affliction. The primary symptoms of the affliction were thought to be a weakening of the vital forces and willpower of its victim. In this way, a wide range of social and medical deviations, including crime, violence, alcoholism, prostitution, gambling, and pornography, could be explained by reference to a biological defect within the individual. The theory of degeneration was therefore predicated on evolutionary theory. The forces of degeneration opposed those of evolution, and those afflicted with degeneration were thought to represent a return to an earlier evolutionary stage.

<h2 id="development-of-the-concept">Development of the concept</h2>

The earliest uses of the term degeneration can be found in the writings of <a href="/facts/Blumenbach/J1S7PSDj">Blumenbach</a> and <a href="/facts/Georges-Louis_Leclerc,_Comte_de_Buffon/9LqPhlul">Buffon</a> at the end of the 18th century, when these early writers on natural history considered scientific approaches to the human species. With the taxonomic mind-set of natural historians, they drew attention to the different ethnic groupings of mankind, and raised general enquiries about their relationships, with the idea that racial groupings could be explained by environmental effects on a common ancestral stock. This pre-Darwinian belief in the heritability of acquired characteristics does not accord with modern genetics. An alternative view of the multiple origins of different racial groups, called "polygenic theories", was also rejected by <a href="/facts/Charles_Darwin/uwDLGItY">Charles Darwin</a>, who favored explanations in terms of differential geographic migrations from a single, probably African, population.
The theory of degeneration found its first detailed presentation in the writings of <a href="/facts/B%C3%A9n%C3%A9dict_Morel/Hpkq50pg">Bénédict Morel</a> (1809–1873), especially in his Traité des dégénérescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l'espèce humaine (Treatise on Degeneration of the Human Species) (1857). This book was published two years before Darwin's Origin of Species. Morel was a highly regarded psychiatrist, the very successful superintendent of the Rouen asylum for almost twenty years and a fastidious recorder of the family histories of his variously disabled patients. Through the details of these family histories, Morel discerned an hereditary line of defective parents infected by pollutants and stimulants; a second generation liable to epilepsy, neurasthenia, sexual deviations and hysteria; a third generation prone to insanity; and a final generation doomed to congenital idiocy and sterility. In 1857, Morel proposed a theory of hereditary degeneracy, bringing together environmental and hereditary elements in an uncompromisingly pre-Darwinian mix. Morel's contribution was further developed by <a href="/facts/Valentin_Magnan/cjnp14rx">Valentin Magnan</a> (1835–1916), who also stressed the role of alcohol—particularly <a href="/facts/Absinthe/EtpvXxtH">absinthe</a>—in the generation of psychiatric disorders.
Morel's ideas were greatly extended by the Italian medical scientist <a href="/facts/Cesare_Lombroso/FgTx2LWC">Cesare Lombroso</a> (1835–1909) whose work was defended and translated into English by <a href="/facts/Havelock_Ellis/4RgmupYP">Havelock Ellis</a>. In his L'uomo delinquente (1876), Lombroso outlined a comprehensive natural history of the socially deviant person and detailed the stigmata of the person who was born to be criminally insane. These included a low, sloping forehead, hard and shifty eyes, large, handle-shaped ears, a flattened or upturned nose, a forward projection of the jaw, irregular teeth, prehensile toes and feet, long simian arms and a scanty beard and baldness. Lombroso also listed the features of the degenerate mentality, supposedly released by the disinhibition of the primitive neurological centres. These included apathy, the loss of moral sense, a tendency to impulsiveness or self-doubt, an unevenness of mental qualities such as unusual memory or aesthetic abilities, a tendency to mutism or to verbosity, excessive originality, preoccupation with the self, mystical interpretations placed on simple facts or perceptions, the abuse of symbolic meanings and the magical use of words, or mantras. Lombroso, with his concept of atavistic retrogression, suggested an evolutionary reversion, complementing hereditary degeneracy, and his work in the medical examination of criminals in Turin resulted in his theory of <a href="/facts/Criminal_anthropology/xDAyPKMm">criminal anthropology</a>—a constitutional notion of abnormal personality that was not actually supported by his own scientific investigations. In his later life, Lombroso developed an obsession with <a href="/facts/Spiritualism_(movement)/2mLwNKxa">spiritualism</a>, engaging with the spirit of his long dead mother.
In 1892, <a href="/facts/Max_Nordau/Yre9YDHz">Max Nordau</a>, an expatriate Hungarian living in Paris, published his extraordinary bestseller Degeneration, which greatly extended the concepts of Bénédict Morel and Cesare Lombroso (to whom he dedicated the book) to the entire civilization of western Europe, and transformed the medical connotations of degeneration into a generalized cultural criticism. Adopting some of <a href="/facts/Jean-Martin_Charcot/uuU4NJgs">Charcot</a>'s neurological vocabulary, Nordau identified a number of weaknesses in contemporary <a href="/facts/Western_culture/rPbgAhzI">Western culture</a> which he characterized in terms of ego-mania, i.e., <a href="/facts/Narcissism/Q2bT0HUY">narcissism</a> and <a href="/facts/Hysteria/f3qQc90I">hysteria</a>. He also emphasized the importance of fatigue, enervation and ennui. Nordau, horrified by the anti-Semitism surrounding the <a href="/facts/Dreyfus_affair/P83ohw3G">Dreyfus affair</a>, devoted his later years to <a href="/facts/Zionism/kL92sl76">Zionist politics</a>. Degeneration theory fell from favour around the time of the First World War because of an improved understanding of the mechanisms of genetics as well as the increasing vogue for psychoanalytic thinking. However, some of its preoccupations lived on in the world of <a href="/facts/Eugenics/e7w6aSUV">eugenics</a> and <a href="/facts/Social_Darwinism/LwLkddXI">social Darwinism</a>. It is notable that the <a href="/facts/Nazi/JjsMI4lE">Nazi</a> attack on western liberal society was largely couched in terms of <a href="/facts/Degenerate_art/6bWHVn0o">degenerate art</a> with its associations of racial <a href="/facts/Miscegenation/MfpRnrJn">miscegenation</a> and fantasies of <a href="/facts/Racial_purity/tyeupmY5">racial purity</a>—and included as its target almost all modernist cultural experiment.
The role of women in furthering development of the concept of degeneration was reviewed by Anne McClintock, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, who found that women who were ambiguously placed on the so-called "imperial divide" (nurses, nannies, governesses, prostitutes and servants) happened to serve as boundary markers and mediators.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:51" href="#fn:51">51</a> These women were tasked with the purification and maintenance of boundaries and what was seen as "inferior" places in society they held at the time.

<h2 id="degenerationist-devices">Degenerationist devices</h2>
See also: <a href="/facts/Decadent_movement/a4lCvrGv">Decadent movement</a>

Towards the close of the 19th century, in the <a href="/facts/Fin_de_si%C3%A8cle/rdx9BN6z">fin-de-siècle</a> period, something of an obsession with decline, descent and degeneration invaded the European creative imagination, partly fuelled by widespread misconceptions of Darwinian evolutionary theory. Among the main examples are the symbolist literary work of <a href="/facts/Charles_Baudelaire/p1DGFdBa">Charles Baudelaire</a>, the Rougon-Macquart novels of <a href="/facts/%C3%89mile_Zola/L3C0LEl8">Émile Zola</a>, <a href="/facts/Robert_Louis_Stevenson/dpqRUyc0">Robert Louis Stevenson</a>'s <a href="/facts/Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde/Gd15umjR">Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde</a>—published in the same year (1886) as <a href="/facts/Richard_von_Krafft-Ebing/HRa2WfYC">Richard von Krafft-Ebing</a>'s Psychopathia Sexualis—and, subsequently, <a href="/facts/Oscar_Wilde/fRCAnvGk">Oscar Wilde</a>'s only novel (containing his aesthetic manifesto) The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). In Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), <a href="/facts/Thomas_Hardy/ToWJdXbr">Thomas Hardy</a> explores the destructive consequences of a family myth of noble ancestry. Norwegian dramatist <a href="/facts/Henrik_Ibsen/LCnmQABc">Henrik Ibsen</a> showed a sensitivity to degenerationist thinking in his theatrical presentations of Scandinavian domestic crises. <a href="/facts/Arthur_Machen/4dvBBAlX">Arthur Machen</a>'s <a href="/facts/The_Great_God_Pan/YsqQRVLp">The Great God Pan</a> (1890/1894), with its emphasis on the horrors of psychosurgery, is frequently cited as an essay on degeneration. A scientific twist was added by <a href="/facts/H._G._Wells/J0Y372Km">H. G. Wells</a> in <a href="/facts/The_Time_Machine/m7UFcYug">The Time Machine</a> (1895) in which Wells prophesied the splitting of the human race into variously degenerate forms, and again in his <a href="/facts/The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau/u9zbTPdp">The Island of Doctor Moreau</a> (1896) wherein forcibly mutated animal-human hybrids keep reverting to their earlier forms. <a href="/facts/Joseph_Conrad/WSrhX7pT">Joseph Conrad</a> alludes to degeneration theory in his treatment of political radicalism in the 1907 novel <a href="/facts/The_Secret_Agent/09rghDxy">The Secret Agent</a>.
In her influential study The Gothic Body, Kelly Hurley draws attention to the literary device of the <a href="/facts/Abhuman/Nq3wdSeE">abhuman</a> as a representation of damaged personal identity, and to lesser-known authors in the field, including <a href="/facts/Richard_Marsh_(author)/t6lQeMR2">Richard Marsh</a> (1857–1915), author of <a href="/facts/The_Beetle_(novel)/eGjJpuEr">The Beetle</a> (1897), and <a href="/facts/William_Hope_Hodgson/CPJ3hTVE">William Hope Hodgson</a> (1877–1918), author of <a href="/facts/The_Boats_of_the_Glen_Carrig/9aF1vlV1">The Boats of the Glen Carrig</a>, <a href="/facts/The_House_on_the_Borderland/TyVpVjWV">The House on the Borderland</a> and <a href="/facts/The_Night_Land/ggsHQ6FM">The Night Land</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:52" href="#fn:52">52</a> In 1897, <a href="/facts/Bram_Stoker/eJmm3Myz">Bram Stoker</a> published <a href="/facts/Dracula/DUmP8T48">Dracula</a>, an enormously influential Gothic novel featuring the parasitic vampire Count Dracula in an extended exercise of reversed imperialism. Unusually, Stoker makes explicit reference to the writings of Lombroso and Nordau in the course of the novel.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:53" href="#fn:53">53</a> <a href="/facts/Arthur_Conan_Doyle/52dvrHvc">Arthur Conan Doyle</a>'s Sherlock Holmes stories include a host of degenerationist <a href="/facts/Trope_(literature)/xwQxCxqx">tropes</a>, perhaps best illustrated (drawing on the ideas of <a href="/facts/Serge_Voronoff/sBzTWQEz">Serge Voronoff</a>) in <a href="/facts/The_Adventure_of_the_Creeping_Man/k0SBG1BR">The Adventure of the Creeping Man</a>.

<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Behavioral_sink/g0Fb3w32">Behavioral sink</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Decadence/BmtPV5d3">Decadence</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Declinism/QH0w62Vt">Declinism</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Degenerate_art/6bWHVn0o">Degenerate art</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Devolution_(biology)/aSu2BzXU">Devolution</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Dysgenics/lE7Q5326">Dysgenics</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Human_extinction/AKGd4JlS">Human extinction</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Idiocracy/HeEhayh6">Idiocracy</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Last_man/JPLU0EfG">Last man</a></li>
<li>"<a href="/facts/The_Marching_Morons/D29jCbXv">The Marching Morons</a>"</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Societal_collapse/mxDqMIyE">Societal collapse</a></li></ul>
<h2 id="notes">Notes</h2>

<h2 id="further-reading">Further reading</h2>
<ul><li>Lawrence, Christopher (March 2010). <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0140-6736%2810%2960425-4">"Degeneration"</a>. <a href="/facts/The_Lancet/UYtU5P4P">The Lancet</a>. 375 (9719): 975. <a href="/facts/Doi_(identifier)/muM9Etpq">doi</a>:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0140-6736%2810%2960425-4">10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60425-4</a>. <a href="/facts/PMID_(identifier)/JlHAvMHt">PMID</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20304232">20304232</a>.</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1">Herman, Arthur (1997). The Idea of Decline in Western History. New York: The Free Press. ISBN 9780684827919.[page needed] <a href="9780684827919" target="_blank">9780684827919</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:2">Pick, Daniel (1989). Faces of Degeneration. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511558573. ISBN 978-0-521-36021-0.[page needed] <a href="978-0-521-36021-0" target="_blank">978-0-521-36021-0</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:3">Dowbiggin, Ian (1985). "Degeneration and hereditarianism in French mental medicine 1840–90: psychiatric theory as ideological adaptation". In Bynum, W. F.; Shepherd, Michael; Porter, Roy (eds.). Anatomy of Madness: essays in the history of psychiatry. Volume III, The asylum and its psychiatry. London: Tavistock Publications. pp. 188–232. OCLC 564383203. <a href="/wiki/OCLC_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/OCLC_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:4">Oppenheim, Janet (1991). "Nervous Degeneration". "Shattered Nerves": Doctors, patients, and depression in Victorian England. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 265–292. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195057812.003.0009. ISBN 9780195057812. <a href="9780195057812" target="_blank">9780195057812</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:5">Lenoir, Timothy (1980). "Kant, Blumenbach, and Vital Materialism in German Biology". Isis. 71 (1): 77–108. doi:10.1086/352408. ISSN 0021-1753. JSTOR 230314. S2CID 145106436. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Doi_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:6">Leclerc, Georges-Louis, Comte de Buffon (1821). Hutton, W. (ed.). Buffon's natural history: abridged. London: Thomas Tegg. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.120026. OCLC 34659411.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[page needed] <a href="https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:7">Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (1865). The anthropological treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. Anthropological Society of London. Publications. Longwood Press. doi:10.1037/13883-000. hdl:2027/mdp.39015010297656. ISBN 9780893415112.[page needed] <a href="9780893415112" target="_blank">9780893415112</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:8">Horn, David G. (2003). The criminal body: Lombroso and the anatomy of deviance. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780415947299.[page needed] <a href="9780415947299" target="_blank">9780415947299</a> <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:9">Degeneration the Dark Side of Progress. Columbia University Press. 6 May 2019. doi:10.7312/cham90822/html. ISBN 978-0-231-88066-4. Retrieved 15 May 2024. <a href="978-0-231-88066-4" target="_blank">978-0-231-88066-4</a> <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:10">Dugatkin, Lee Alan (2019). Mr. Jefferson and the giant moose: natural history in early America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-63910-9. OCLC 1051681315. <a href="978-0-226-63910-9" target="_blank">978-0-226-63910-9</a> <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:11">Dugatkin, Lee Alan (2019). Mr. Jefferson and the giant moose: natural history in early America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-63910-9. OCLC 1051681315. <a href="978-0-226-63910-9" target="_blank">978-0-226-63910-9</a> <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:12">Leclerc, Georges-Louis, Comte de Buffon (1821). Hutton, W. (ed.). Buffon's natural history: abridged. London: Thomas Tegg. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.120026. OCLC 34659411.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[page needed] <a href="https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up</a> <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:13">Leclerc, Georges-Louis, Comte de Buffon (1821). Hutton, W. (ed.). Buffon's natural history: abridged. London: Thomas Tegg. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.120026. OCLC 34659411.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[page needed] <a href="https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up</a> <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:14">Leclerc, Georges-Louis, Comte de Buffon (1821). Hutton, W. (ed.). Buffon's natural history: abridged. London: Thomas Tegg. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.120026. OCLC 34659411.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[page needed] <a href="https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up</a> <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:15">Leclerc, Georges-Louis, Comte de Buffon (1821). Hutton, W. (ed.). Buffon's natural history: abridged. London: Thomas Tegg. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.120026. OCLC 34659411.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[page needed] <a href="https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up</a> <a href="#fnref:15" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:16">Leclerc, Georges-Louis, Comte de Buffon (1821). Hutton, W. (ed.). Buffon's natural history: abridged. London: Thomas Tegg. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.120026. OCLC 34659411.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[page needed] <a href="https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up</a> <a href="#fnref:16" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:17">Leclerc, Georges-Louis, Comte de Buffon (1821). Hutton, W. (ed.). Buffon's natural history: abridged. London: Thomas Tegg. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.120026. OCLC 34659411.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[page needed] <a href="https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up</a> <a href="#fnref:17" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:18">Leclerc, Georges-Louis, Comte de Buffon (1821). Hutton, W. (ed.). Buffon's natural history: abridged. London: Thomas Tegg. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.120026. OCLC 34659411.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[page needed] <a href="https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up</a> <a href="#fnref:18" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:19">Leclerc, Georges-Louis, Comte de Buffon (1821). Hutton, W. (ed.). Buffon's natural history: abridged. London: Thomas Tegg. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.120026. OCLC 34659411.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[page needed] <a href="https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/buffonquotsnatu00buff/page/n6/mode/1up</a> <a href="#fnref:19" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:20">Dugatkin, Lee Alan (2019). Mr. Jefferson and the giant moose: natural history in early America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-63910-9. OCLC 1051681315. <a href="978-0-226-63910-9" target="_blank">978-0-226-63910-9</a> <a href="#fnref:20" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:21">"Notes on the State of Virginia: Electronic Edition: Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826". docsouth.unc.edu. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 2006. Retrieved 24 May 2020. <a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/jefferson/jefferson.html" target="_blank">https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/jefferson/jefferson.html</a> <a href="#fnref:21" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:22">Dugatkin, Lee Alan (2019). Mr. Jefferson and the giant moose: natural history in early America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-63910-9. OCLC 1051681315. <a href="978-0-226-63910-9" target="_blank">978-0-226-63910-9</a> <a href="#fnref:22" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:23">Dugatkin, Lee Alan (2019). Mr. Jefferson and the giant moose: natural history in early America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-63910-9. OCLC 1051681315. <a href="978-0-226-63910-9" target="_blank">978-0-226-63910-9</a> <a href="#fnref:23" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:24">Dugatkin, Lee Alan (2019). Mr. Jefferson and the giant moose: natural history in early America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-63910-9. OCLC 1051681315. <a href="978-0-226-63910-9" target="_blank">978-0-226-63910-9</a> <a href="#fnref:24" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:25">Dugatkin, Lee Alan (2019). Mr. Jefferson and the giant moose: natural history in early America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-63910-9. OCLC 1051681315. <a href="978-0-226-63910-9" target="_blank">978-0-226-63910-9</a> <a href="#fnref:25" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:26">Lenoir, Timothy (1980). "Kant, Blumenbach, and Vital Materialism in German Biology". Isis. 71 (1): 77–108. doi:10.1086/352408. ISSN 0021-1753. JSTOR 230314. S2CID 145106436. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Doi_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:26" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:27">Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (1865). The anthropological treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. Anthropological Society of London. Publications. Longwood Press. doi:10.1037/13883-000. hdl:2027/mdp.39015010297656. ISBN 9780893415112.[page needed] <a href="9780893415112" target="_blank">9780893415112</a> <a href="#fnref:27" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:28">Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (1865). The anthropological treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. Anthropological Society of London. Publications. Longwood Press. doi:10.1037/13883-000. hdl:2027/mdp.39015010297656. ISBN 9780893415112.[page needed] <a href="9780893415112" target="_blank">9780893415112</a> <a href="#fnref:28" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:29">Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (1865). The anthropological treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. Anthropological Society of London. Publications. Longwood Press. doi:10.1037/13883-000. hdl:2027/mdp.39015010297656. ISBN 9780893415112.[page needed] <a href="9780893415112" target="_blank">9780893415112</a> <a href="#fnref:29" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:30">Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (1789). "Über Menschen-Racen und Schweine-Racen" [About human races and pig races]. Magazin für das Neueste aus der Physik und Naturgeschichte (in German). No. 6. pp. 1–13. <a href="#fnref:30" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:31">Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (1789). "Über Menschen-Racen und Schweine-Racen" [About human races and pig races]. Magazin für das Neueste aus der Physik und Naturgeschichte (in German). No. 6. pp. 1–13. <a href="#fnref:31" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:32">Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (1865). The anthropological treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. Anthropological Society of London. Publications. Longwood Press. doi:10.1037/13883-000. hdl:2027/mdp.39015010297656. ISBN 9780893415112.[page needed] <a href="9780893415112" target="_blank">9780893415112</a> <a href="#fnref:32" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:33">Gould, Stephen Jay (November 1994). "The Geometer of Race". Discover. pp. 65–69. ISSN 0274-7529. Retrieved 24 May 2020. <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-geometer-of-race" target="_blank">https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-geometer-of-race</a> <a href="#fnref:33" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:34">Sloan, Phillip R. (1979). "Buffon, German Biology, and the Historical Interpretation of Biological Species". The British Journal for the History of Science. 12 (2): 109–153. doi:10.1017/S0007087400017027. ISSN 0007-0874. JSTOR 4025750. S2CID 86755426. <a href="/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science" target="_blank">/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science</a> <a href="#fnref:34" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:35">Sloan, Phillip R. (1979). "Buffon, German Biology, and the Historical Interpretation of Biological Species". The British Journal for the History of Science. 12 (2): 109–153. doi:10.1017/S0007087400017027. ISSN 0007-0874. JSTOR 4025750. S2CID 86755426. <a href="/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science" target="_blank">/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science</a> <a href="#fnref:35" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:36">Sloan, Phillip R. (1979). "Buffon, German Biology, and the Historical Interpretation of Biological Species". The British Journal for the History of Science. 12 (2): 109–153. doi:10.1017/S0007087400017027. ISSN 0007-0874. JSTOR 4025750. S2CID 86755426. <a href="/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science" target="_blank">/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science</a> <a href="#fnref:36" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:37">Sloan, Phillip R. (1979). "Buffon, German Biology, and the Historical Interpretation of Biological Species". The British Journal for the History of Science. 12 (2): 109–153. doi:10.1017/S0007087400017027. ISSN 0007-0874. JSTOR 4025750. S2CID 86755426. <a href="/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science" target="_blank">/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science</a> <a href="#fnref:37" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:38">Sloan, Phillip R. (1979). "Buffon, German Biology, and the Historical Interpretation of Biological Species". The British Journal for the History of Science. 12 (2): 109–153. doi:10.1017/S0007087400017027. ISSN 0007-0874. JSTOR 4025750. S2CID 86755426. <a href="/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science" target="_blank">/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science</a> <a href="#fnref:38" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:39">Sloan, Phillip R. (1979). "Buffon, German Biology, and the Historical Interpretation of Biological Species". The British Journal for the History of Science. 12 (2): 109–153. doi:10.1017/S0007087400017027. ISSN 0007-0874. JSTOR 4025750. S2CID 86755426. <a href="/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science" target="_blank">/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science</a> <a href="#fnref:39" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:40">Sloan, Phillip R. (1979). "Buffon, German Biology, and the Historical Interpretation of Biological Species". The British Journal for the History of Science. 12 (2): 109–153. doi:10.1017/S0007087400017027. ISSN 0007-0874. JSTOR 4025750. S2CID 86755426. <a href="/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science" target="_blank">/wiki/The_British_Journal_for_the_History_of_Science</a> <a href="#fnref:40" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:41">Lenoir, Timothy (1980). "Kant, Blumenbach, and Vital Materialism in German Biology". Isis. 71 (1): 77–108. doi:10.1086/352408. ISSN 0021-1753. JSTOR 230314. S2CID 145106436. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Doi_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:41" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:42">Lenoir, Timothy (1980). "Kant, Blumenbach, and Vital Materialism in German Biology". Isis. 71 (1): 77–108. doi:10.1086/352408. ISSN 0021-1753. JSTOR 230314. S2CID 145106436. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Doi_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:42" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:43">Lenoir, Timothy (1980). "Kant, Blumenbach, and Vital Materialism in German Biology". Isis. 71 (1): 77–108. doi:10.1086/352408. ISSN 0021-1753. JSTOR 230314. S2CID 145106436. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Doi_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:43" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
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<li id="fn:49">Trotter, David (December 1995). "Degeneration, Culture and the Novel: 1880-1940". Notes and Queries. 42 (4): 513–514. doi:10.1093/notesj/42.4.513. ISSN 1471-6941. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Doi_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:49" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
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<li id="fn:51">McClintock, Anne (1995). Imperial leather: race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780203699546. <a href="9780203699546" target="_blank">9780203699546</a> <a href="#fnref:51" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:52">Hurley, Kelly (1996). The Gothic Body: Sexuality, Materialism, and Degeneration at the Fin de Siècle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511519161. ISBN 9780511519161.[page needed] <a href="9780511519161" target="_blank">9780511519161</a> <a href="#fnref:52" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:53">Subotsky, Fiona (2019). Dracula for doctors: medical facts and Gothic fantasies. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781911623281. ISBN 9781911623281. S2CID 210452247.[page needed] <a href="9781911623281" target="_blank">9781911623281</a> <a href="#fnref:53" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
</ol>

Social degeneration open-in-new

Social degeneration