Bio-medical degeneration in Britain, 1850-1914: theory and evidence

Thesis

During the second half of the nineteenth century leading to the First World War, a belief emerged that European populations were manifesting a process of physical and biological decline. This belief was inspired by social changes caused by industrialization and urbanization and by the apparent rationales of evolutionary biology, which appeared to place conflict and competition at the center of species development. Degeneration was not a positive or clearly defined theory. It drew upon existing theories of heredity and disease to express a sense of discomfort about progress and the competition between nations. The persistence of degeneration was a product of a bio-medical environment in which knowledge was provisional and rapidly changing. Because of this, ideas about hereditary disease and decline could not be definitively refuted even as an understanding of disease pathology, heredity and epidemiology consistently improved. In the British national context, degeneration would be notable in two particular arenas – the impact of urbanization and the study of recruiting statistics as a proxy for assessing the health of the population. These avenues demonstrated not only the tenacity of ideas about hereditary physical decline over a sixty-year period but also the equally tenacious responses from physicians and public health experts who disagreed with the fundamental assumptions of degeneration. This thesis will address the conflicts about the content of degeneration theory and will examine the existing knowledge about heredity and disease that made the refutation of degeneration so challenging. It will also examine official investigations at the turn of the 20th century, inspired by revelations gained from the poor health of army recruits, to look more carefully at how a concrete study of a social problem led to a rejection of pessimistic conclusions about public health.

Authors: Taylor, JHC

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-00bwynd5v
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: heredity; Britain twentieth century; degeneration; Britain nineteenth century; evolutionary biology; medicine
• Subjects: Science and Medicine - History