Prima e dopo Lamarck. Il miglioramento della specie umana tra ereditarietà e degenerazione
This paper aims to illustrate the relationship between heredity and degeneration in the nineteenth-century French scientific culture. From the work of P. Lucas on inheritance in nervous diseases, a large group of psychiatrists, followers of Pinel and Esquirol, began to investigate inheritance in mad...
Tallennettuna:
| Julkaisussa: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/studifrancesi, |
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| Päätekijä: | |
| Aineistotyyppi: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Kieli: | Italien |
| Julkaistu: |
Studi Francesi
2016
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| Linkit: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Yhteenveto: | This paper aims to illustrate the relationship between heredity and degeneration in the nineteenth-century French scientific culture. From the work of P. Lucas on inheritance in nervous diseases, a large group of psychiatrists, followers of Pinel and Esquirol, began to investigate inheritance in madness. For Morel, however, the transmission of madness did not consist purely of a mechanism based on inheritance. On the contrary, nervous disease is a real degenerative form, which resolved in the extinction of the family line. Among the causes of the dégénérescence alienists indicated especially social conditions: the recent industrialization and urbanization yielded many social plagues. Typically, those who showed the stigmata of hereditary defects included among its own ancestors subjects addicted to vice. Consequently doctors and psychiatrists proposed programs of hygiene and public health. At the same time, the mechanisms of variation and inheritance were investigated by breeders and farmers. Darwin recognized their results, but only the revolution in genetics could put an end to the mystery of heredity. |
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