2015
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1005524
|View full text |Cite
|
Sign up to set email alerts
|

Ernst Rüdin’s Unpublished 1922-1925 Study “Inheritance of Manic-Depressive Insanity”: Genetic Research Findings Subordinated to Eugenic Ideology

Abstract: In the early 20th century, there were few therapeutic options for mental illness and asylum numbers were rising. This pessimistic outlook favoured the rise of the eugenics movement. Heredity was assumed to be the principal cause of mental illness. Politicians, scientists and clinicians in North America and Europe called for compulsory sterilisation of the mentally ill. Psychiatric genetic research aimed to prove a Mendelian mode of inheritance as a scientific justification for these measures. Ernst Rüdin’s sem… Show more

Help me understand this report

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...
1
1
1

Citation Types

0
14
0

Year Published

2015
2015
2023
2023

Publication Types

Select...
6
1

Relationship

1
6

Authors

Journals

citations
Cited by 14 publications
(14 citation statements)
references
References 59 publications
0
14
0
Order By: Relevance
“…7 He promoted the prevention of assumed hereditary mental illnesses by the prohibition of marriage or sterilization, 8 despite his knowledge that major mental disorders, including affective disorders, do not follow a simple pattern of Mendelian inheritance. 9…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…7 He promoted the prevention of assumed hereditary mental illnesses by the prohibition of marriage or sterilization, 8 despite his knowledge that major mental disorders, including affective disorders, do not follow a simple pattern of Mendelian inheritance. 9…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Rosanoff clearly excited about the recently rediscovered laws of Mendel posed the question of whether such laws might apply to "insanity and allied neuropathic conditions?" Rosanoff did not follow the approach which would dominate studies applying Mendelian models to psychiatric illness over the ensuing decades-attempts to uncover the mode of transmission of specific psychiatric disorders, especially dementia praecox (Rudin, 1916) and manic-depressive insanity (Hoffmann, 1921;Kosters, Steinberg, Kirkby, & Himmerich, 2015). Instead, Rosanoff examined the rates of illness in the offspring of the six expected mating types of a risk locus for which they label D to be the wild type allele and R the risk allele for the neuropathic constitution: From patient samples available to Rosanoff then working at Kings Park State Hospital, he excluded patients with clear exogenous causes, and included only families with at least two generations of affected individuals who were "accessible to investigation," and subjects on whom they were able to gather sufficient information to distinguish "neuropathic states from the normal state" (Rosanoff & Orr, 1911, p. 226).…”
Section: Rosanoff's 1911 Studymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…There were other genetics investigators, particularly Mott in England, who held similar views (Mott, 1914). However, in addition to the statisticians Heron and Pearson, Rosanoff's diagnostic approach in this study was strongly attacked by another leading US psychiatrist/ geneticist of this era Abraham Myerson (Myerson, 1925) (their debate is reviewed elsewhere; Kendler, in press) and treated skeptically by Ernst Rüdin and his students who focused on careful genetic studies of Kraepelinian diagnostic categories such as dementia praecox (Rudin, 1916) and manic-depressive insanity (Kosters et al, 2015).…”
Section: His Critique On Heron Continuesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…As one of the primary architects of Nazi eugenics, Rüdin’s impact was felt most immediately in the euthanasia programs that his ideas instigated and he helped design as chair of the Committee for Racial Hygiene and Racial Policy at the Ministry of the Interior in Hitler’s Germany. That committee gave rise to the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring,” and that law led to between 350,000 and 400,000 German sterilizations during the Nazi rule [ 1 2 ].…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…But as Kösters et al [ 1 ] illustrate in their important paper in this issue of PLOS Genetics , there is more to Rüdin’s story than just his role in and impact on Nazi eugenic programs. Their paper offers new insights into long-standing debates about how to remember Rüdin and what his story can tell us.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%