Eugenics, Human Genetics and Human Failings; The Eugenics Society, its sources and its critics in Britain, by Pauline Mazumdar. Pp 373 (Routledge 1992). Ł40.00
This book opens with an acknowledgement of the author’s indebtedness to the then Eugenics Society, for making her welcome to use its library and archives at 69 Eccleston Square (now at the Wellcome Institute), for it is upon these that much of her work is based. Many of the items are made public for the first time. The theme is the history of the eugenics movement in Britain and, inextricably linked with it, that of human genetics. But though the book abounds with facts, it is not a simple factual account, for the author’s interpretations appear throughout, and are not always distinguishable from historical statements.
She sees the eugenics movement in Britain as stemming from earlier 19th century reform movements, the Society founded in 1907 being the latest in a group of others, e.g. the Charity Organisation Society (founded 1869), the Society for the Study of Inebriety (1884), the Moral Education League (1898), with the "common goal of the control of pauperism and the management of the class they called the residuum", the social problem group (p. 10). Chapter 1 sets out this historical background, and the attitudes observed in the first 30 years of the Society’s existence. Chapter 2 deals with the use of the pedigree method 1900 - 1920, and covers the arrival of statistics in analysis and the emergence of the biometric/mendelian controversy. Chapter 3, perhaps the most sympathetically written, is devoted to R A Fisher and his contribution. Chapter 4, entitled "The attack from the left; Marxism and the new mathematical techniques" deals with the criticisms of Hogben and Haldane, emphasising the importance of environmental influences, and claims that the link between the Left and environmentalism was forged in this time, the 1930s. The fifth chapter refers to the work of Penrose, Caradog Jones and Eliot Slater and covers the political and scientific activities of the 1930s; when research in human genetics remained close to traditional eugenics - "The Society’s interests formed the thread upon which the geneticists’ pearls were strung." The period was one of large scale official reports, on feeble mindedness, vagrancy, sterilisation, when the Society was looked to for informed comment. The final few pages consist of an epilogue and conclusion.
There emerges, perhaps not unexpectedly from a writer in the tradition of transatlantic democracy, an undercurrent of dislike of the English class system, perhaps lack of understanding of it and of the motives of those who sought to alleviate the problems that accompanied it. The book is to be read with caution. For example was the so-called left wing attack "strongly ideologically motivated"? (page 194). Did Fisher really think that "It is not we the members of the upper class that are fittest to survive … but we the members of the Eugenics Society who will give us Nietzche’s race of Ubermenschen" (p. 103-4)? The book fails to indicate how much of the Society’s effort in different areas was indeed subsequently embodied in legislation which is still current today. It ignores the interests of the Society in topics other than human inheritance and particularly the very real contribution made by the Society in population studies and family planning. It is unfortunate that the author did not ask anyone at the Society to comment on her text, for had she done so then some of the errors could have been corrected – not least her writing off the present-day Society: "It changed its name and moved out of town leaving the field to human genetics." But the book is well worth reading, especially for its different perspective on events.
Derek Roberts
Molecular Genetics in Medicine, edited by D F Roberts and Robert Chester and published by Macmillan
Subtitled Advances, Applications and Ethical Implicatons, this is the latest volume of the published proceedings of the Institute’s annual symposia. A paperback version is not yet available but the hardback can be obtained from bookshops at a price of Ł45.00.