Degeneracy is a theory that was popular in the late 19th century, based on the premise that certain (lower) social classes and races were predisposed to various neurological and mental illnesses due to bad heredity, resulting in social degradation. This theory can be distinguished from more popular scientific theories of biological heredity of the time, such as Mendelism and/or Natural Selection, in that it attributed general conditions such as mental instability and poor health to certain types of behaviours, such as having an “immoral lifestyle.” Implicit in this notion of hereditary moral pathology was that certain social groups such as prostitutes, criminals, the poor, and the insane, were morally defective and represented a regression in human evolution. It was widely believed that these moral and physical pathologies would persist and proliferate from generation to generation whether through biological or social means, therefore, miscegenation between such morally defective individuals, particularly of other (undesirable) races, should be highly regulated (i.e., eugenics and moral hygiene) for the good of society.

Degeneracy theory, heredity, and social environment
A theory of progressive degeneracy was first proposed by B.A. Morel in 1857 in his book, Traits des Dégénérescences Physiques, Intellectuelles et Morales de l’Espèce Humaine (trans. Treatise on Degeneracy). Morel claimed that the use of various ‘poisons’ such as hashish, alcohol, and opium resulted in progressive physical and moral deterioration (e.g., feeblemindedness), which would be passed on from generation to generation, ultimately resulting in an unfit society. This entailed a worsening in the overall intellectual or moral character or integrity, as well as physical characters, resulting in the proliferation of individuals of inferior quality or ability. This theory remained popular in medicine and psychiatry as well as anthropology, biology, sociology, and criminology well into the early 20th century. Morel’s theory was accepted by such influential psychiatrists and physicians as Henry Maudsley (1835-1918), Max Simon Nordau (1849-1923), and Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909).

Nordau (1898:6) defined degeneracy as “a morbid deviation from an original type. This deviation, even if, at the outset, it was ever so slight contained transmissible elements of such a nature that anyone bearing in him the germs becomes more and more incapable of fulfilling his functions in the world; and mental progress . . . finds itself menaced also in his descendants.”

Maudsley (1884) characterized degeneracy as the successive peeling-away of the fine textures of moral sentiments and detailed the following stages of the descent into degeneration: 1) insufficient exercise and improper use of moral and volitional powers so that the unchecked satisfaction of passion introduced a deterioration of character in the first generation; 2) a mental derangement would emerge in the second generation that was manifested in defects in character that fell short of madness or crime; 3) the third generation descended into moral imbecility with or without intellectual impairment; 4) the lineage would finally be extinguished through sterility or impotence. Maudsley’s classification of degenerate behaviours included masturbation, licentiousness or gross sexual debauchery, egocentricity and self-importance, nymphomania, vagabondage, degenerate personal hygiene, and persistent laziness.

Lombroso, who is best known for his study of the causes of criminality, considered criminals to be “throwbacks” to earlier phases of evolution (i.e., degenerates). As such, Lombroso believed that the physical features and physiological reactions of criminals would be different from those of the “normal nineteenth century man.” Although Lombroso’s work was more diagnostic in nature, focusing on the anatomical manifestations of degeneracy, he described a whole range of ancestral characteristics, both physical and ethical, including large and protruding zygomata, bulky jaw bones, small cranial capacity, prominent superciliary arches, large orbits, great visual acuity, darker skin, pot handle or voluminous ears as in the monkey, and insensitivity to pain; and, further, obscene tattoos, complete moral insensitivity, total lack of remorse, lack of foresight which sometimes seemed like courage, and courage which alternated with cowardice, excessive idleness, “love of orgies”, need to do evil for its own sake, to kill, and “not only that, but cruelty to the victim, to tear the flesh and drink the blood. ”

With the growing acceptance of evolutionary theory in the in late 19th century, similarly-minded theorists feared that successive generations of ‘debased living,’ including “race-mixing” or miscegenation, could effectively result in the reversal of evolutionary processes. Conceptually, the theory of degeneracy simultaneously attributed social degradation to both heredity and environment. While many believed that improving social environments would correct moral degeneracy, eugenicists, including Francis Galton, believed that the biological transmission of such traits should be legislatively (via marriage and immigration laws) and/or medically (via sterilization laws) controlled in order to prevent the proliferation of “inferior stock” and to preserve the higher classes and races from the effects of progressive degeneracy and criminality, and that desirable couples should be presented with incentives to have children.

-Michael Billinger

• Carlson, E.A. (2001). The unfit: A history of a bad idea. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

• Goodson, I, & Dowbiggin, I. (1990). Docile bodies: commonalities in the history of psychiatry and schooling. In S.J. Ball (Ed.), Foucault and Education: Disciplines and Knowledge (pp. 105-132). New York, NY: Routledge.

• Lombardo, P. (2008). Three generations, no imbeciles: eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

• Maudsley, H. (1884). Body and will. New York: D. Appleton.

• Mazzarello, P. (2011). Cesare Lombroso: an anthropologist between evolution and degeneration. Functional Neurology, 26(2), 97-101.

• Morel, B.A. (1857). Traits des dégénérescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l’Espèce humaine. Paris: J.B. Baillière.

• Nordau, M. (1898). Degeneration. London: William Heinemann.

• Rimke, H., & Hunt, A. (2002). From sinners to degenerates: the medicalization of morality in the 19th Century. History of the Human Sciences, 15(1), 59-88.