Degeneration and eugenics in the history of Brazilian psychiatry: Renato kehl and hereditary degenerates

Abstract

This article analyzes the notions of degeneration and eugenics in the field of psychiatry in the first decades of the twentieth century, stressing the existence of similarities and continuities, but also differences and conflicts between them. It analyzes a particular moment in the history of Brazilian psychiatry when arguments from degeneration theory and eugenic arguments and interventions became superimposed and mingled. It focuses, among other texts, on the work of Renato Kehl, “A esterilização dos grandes degenerados e criminosos”.