<p>This study investigates the treatment of race biology and related subjects in Swedish schoolbooks from 1873 to 1994, with special emphasis on the “gymnasium”-level. The concept of race biology has several connotations: it is at one hand related to physical anthropology and at the other to eugenics. Like in Germany the latter was in Sweden first called “racial hygiene”. After an introduction giving the historical background the books are reviewed for their content on this matter. The conclusions drawn are as follows:<br /><br />1. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, mental, cultural and physical appearances of peoples from various parts of the world are discussed with little emphasis on the distinction between race (as a biological concept) and culture.<br /><br />2. Finns and Lapps are in early books considered as belonging to the Mongolian race. This may be understood in terms of the confusion between classification of race and language but also of at the time prevailing theories of Sweden’s racial history.<br /><br />3. Around 1930 a distinction between race, as a biological concept, and people, as a linguistic and cultural concept is pronounced. Personality characteristics are attributed to biological races.<br /><br />4. The dark-skinned African and Australian populations are treated with special disrespect, whereas the lighter-skinned Polynesians are discussed with high esteem.<br /><br />5. The teachings of the Nazi racialist H. F. K. Günther have a decisive impact on the treatment of in particular European ”races” and their mental characters on at least one author. Even the word “master-race” is used for the Nordic race. The most controversial parts of this teaching are removed in 1945.<br /><br />6. From the 1950’s onward the interest in races is diminished in books in geography, and in the biology books racism is generally condemned.<br /><br />7. Eugenics (racial hygiene) is advocated in biology books into the 1970’s, in a manner close enough to be called political propaganda. The low efficiency of sterilisation against Mendelian recessives is generally presented. The Swedish sterilisation policies at the time are presented in detail in the biology books.<br /><br />8. Traditional race classification is present still in the 1980’s, even with regard to the European “racial types”. Much attention is given to the “extreme” racial crossing between Europeans and Hottentots.<br /><br />9. In a biology book from 1967, control of the third world population explosion (in itself a theme from the 1950’s onward) is explicitly discussed in the context of eugenics.<br /><br />10. When modern in utero diagnostic methods are discussed in the 1990’s, eugenics is not concerned.</p>

The study analyzes the ethical implications of human gene transfer technology for enhancement. Although human gene transfer technology is widely accepted on therapeutic grounds the non-therapeutic use of gene transfer technology remains to be a gray zone for moral deliberation. The present discussion addresses several ethical issues concerning the impacts of human gene transfer technology on individuals, the society, and future people. Accordingly, the study examines major ethical issues concerning the use of human gene transfer technology in general and genetic enhancement in particular, and reliability of the putative demarcation between therapy and enhancement, and further proposes ethical guidelines for non-therapeutic application of human gene transfer technology. A special attention is given to three major ethical issues, such as our obligation to future generations, problems concerning justice, fairness, and equality, and the problem of uncertainty.

In the dominant North American imagination, the asylum has always been a place of the other in society. Stories of Saskatchewan asylums and their reincarnations as mental hospitals are filled with early twentieth century horror narratives and redemptive tales of mid-century scientific progress: the monstrousness of the labyrinthine asylum structures and its arcane treatments, the modern marvels of the experimental therapies and the lives saved by the scientific authorities. Still some of the most infamous buildings to haunt provincial imagination, mental hospitals became more than buildings designed to treat disease in Saskatchewan: they were a cultural phenomenon. The hospitals themselves became social objects invested with meanings which shaped social relations.<p> This thesis investigates how the built structure of the asylum and in particular the North Battleford and Weyburn Mental Hospitals were perceived, experienced and theorized in early twentieth century and post-war Saskatchewan society. In analyzing architectural drawings, floor plans, television documentaries, photographs and patients' personal stories, this dissertation takes a critical look at how patients and staff were situated within the built structure at certain points and in particular during the Weyburn Mental Hospitals extensive earlier twentieth century history and its mid-century re-birth as a modern psychiatric research centre. Feminist and post-colonial debates about the history of medicine and eugenics, spatial and socio-practices of power within built structure and the representation of patients and health professionals in colonial and modern society are also examined as a means to situate the discussion of the mental hospital within the broader context of the discussion on spatial discourses.

In the dominant North American imagination, the asylum has always been a place of the other in society. Stories of Saskatchewan asylums and their reincarnations as mental hospitals are filled with early twentieth century horror narratives and redemptive tales of mid-century scientific progress: the monstrousness of the labyrinthine asylum structures and its arcane treatments, the modern marvels of the experimental therapies and the lives saved by the scientific authorities. Still some of the most infamous buildings to haunt provincial imagination, mental hospitals became more than buildings designed to treat disease in Saskatchewan: they were a cultural phenomenon. The hospitals themselves became social objects invested with meanings which shaped social relations.<p> This thesis investigates how the built structure of the asylum and in particular the North Battleford and Weyburn Mental Hospitals were perceived, experienced and theorized in early twentieth century and post-war Saskatchewan society. In analyzing architectural drawings, floor plans, television documentaries, photographs and patients' personal stories, this dissertation takes a critical look at how patients and staff were situated within the built structure at certain points and in particular during the Weyburn Mental Hospitals extensive earlier twentieth century history and its mid-century re-birth as a modern psychiatric research centre. Feminist and post-colonial debates about the history of medicine and eugenics, spatial and socio-practices of power within built structure and the representation of patients and health professionals in colonial and modern society are also examined as a means to situate the discussion of the mental hospital within the broader context of the discussion on spatial discourses.

<p>The study analyzes the ethical implications of human gene transfer technology for enhancement. Although human gene transfer technology is widely accepted on therapeutic grounds the non-therapeutic use of gene transfer technology remains to be a gray zone for moral deliberation. The present discussion addresses several ethical issues concerning the impacts of human gene transfer technology on individuals, the society, and future people. Accordingly, the study examines major ethical issues concerning the use of human gene transfer technology in general and genetic enhancement in particular, and reliability of the putative demarcation between therapy and enhancement, and further proposes ethical guidelines for non-therapeutic application of human gene transfer technology. A special attention is given to three major ethical issues, such as our obligation to future generations, problems concerning justice, fairness, and equality, and the problem of uncertainty.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 276-291).

In Bolivia, indigenous women's desires to give birth in an atmosphere of respect and cultural autonomy, as well as physicians' and politicians' attempts to mold the nation along racial lines, shaped the development of obstetric medicine. Based on oral histories of midwives, nurses and obstetricians, this study uses midwifery as a lens to examine the connections between nation-state formation and the development of obstetric medicine in Bolivia between 1900 and 1982. Putting midwives at the center of a study about nation-state formation reveals complexities that many male-centered studies miss: indigenous, mixed-race, and white Bolivian women played central roles in state projects and, through their embodiment of different forms of womanhood, influenced debates about Bolivian national identity. This study also engages groundbreaking feminist studies of the 1970s and '80s which showed that U.S. and European male physicians created obstetric medicine by pushing female midwives out of the practice. These physicians typically accused midwives of ineptitude and defined childbirth assistance as a scientific medical procedure that should not be practiced by women. While that pattern holds true in Bolivia to some extent, it does not explain the power dynamics that shaped childbirth assistance in Bolivia. Over the course of the twentieth century, Bolivian physician's desires to modernize childbirth assistance and childrearing practices intertwined with the efforts of Bolivia's elite to overcome what they considered the country's "Indian Problem."

This study investigates the treatment of race biology and related subjects in Swedish schoolbooks from 1873 to 1994, with special emphasis on the “gymnasium”-level. The concept of race biology has several connotations: it is at one hand related to physical anthropology and at the other to eugenics. Like in Germany the latter was in Sweden first called “racial hygiene”. After an introduction giving the historical background the books are reviewed for their content on this matter. The conclusions drawn are as follows:<br /><br />1. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, mental, cultural and physical appearances of peoples from various parts of the world are discussed with little emphasis on the distinction between race (as a biological concept) and culture.<br /><br />2. Finns and Lapps are in early books considered as belonging to the Mongolian race. This may be understood in terms of the confusion between classification of race and language but also of at the time prevailing theories of Sweden’s racial history.<br /><br />3. Around 1930 a distinction between race, as a biological concept, and people, as a linguistic and cultural concept is pronounced. Personality characteristics are attributed to biological races.<br /><br />4. The dark-skinned African and Australian populations are treated with special disrespect, whereas the lighter-skinned Polynesians are discussed with high esteem.<br /><br />5. The teachings of the Nazi racialist H. F. K. Günther have a decisive impact on the treatment of in particular European ”races” and their mental characters on at least one author. Even the word “master-race” is used for the Nordic race. The most controversial parts of this teaching are removed in 1945.<br /><br />6. From the 1950’s onward the interest in races is diminished in books in geography, and in the biology books racism is generally condemned.<br /><br />7. Eugenics (racial hygiene) is advocated in biology books into the 1970’s, in a manner close enough to be called political propaganda. The low efficiency of sterilisation against Mendelian recessives is generally presented. The Swedish sterilisation policies at the time are presented in detail in the biology books.<br /><br />8. Traditional race classification is present still in the 1980’s, even with regard to the European “racial types”. Much attention is given to the “extreme” racial crossing between Europeans and Hottentots.<br /><br />9. In a biology book from 1967, control of the third world population explosion (in itself a theme from the 1950’s onward) is explicitly discussed in the context of eugenics.<br /><br />10. When modern in utero diagnostic methods are discussed in the 1990’s, eugenics is not concerned.

Between 1890 and 1927 hundreds of Nova Scotian children and adults were identified as either feeble-minded or mentally deficient through investigations conducted by physicians and philanthropists in the province. The earliest of these studies were not commissioned by the provincial government but instead reflected the middle-class internalization of the eugenic discourse. Reformers, drawn often from medical, religious, educational, and philanthropic vocations, sought with ever-increasing alacrity to respond to perceived social problems, such as poverty, prostitution, venereal disease, and alcoholism, with a scientific solution. The scientific solution that they embraced was eugenics. Eugenic ideology and programs rose to popularity in Europe and North America at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Driven by social anxiety and the medicalization of reproduction, eugenic theory expressed the concerns of the middle classes that those they deemed less fit on the basis of socio-economic class, education or heredity, were reproducing at a higher rate than the ‘desirable’ segments of the population. The application of eugenic theory was shaped by cultural assumptions about gender, class and race which resulted in the same principles finding different expression in different areas across the globe. This dissertation seeks to understand how local circumstances shaped the Nova Scotian understanding of eugenics and its application. It examines the manner in which Nova Scotian physicians and philanthropists, with strong ties to both New England and Britain, participated in the transnational eugenic discourse through both professional and popular publications and organizations. Overall it argues that the expression of eugenics in Nova Scotia culminated in legislation that enforced the inspection, segregation and institutionalization of individuals who were assessed as feeble-minded. In doing so it also calls attention to the need to recognize outcomes other than sexual sterilization as legitimate expressions of eugenic policy. Subsequently the influential role played by regional circumstances in shaping what was considered an acceptable eugenic outcome as well as how eugenic policy was sought and implemented is examined. In investigating what reformers understood to be eugenic, and conversely what they considered dysgenic, a complex discourse surrounding the health of populations and reliant on ideas of gender, race, and class is revealed.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on April 16, 2008) Includes free thought references.