Darwinism, Eugenics and Mendelism in Cuban Biological Education: 1900-1959

Abstract

The development of eugenics—defined towards the end of the nineteenth century by its creator Sir Francis Galton as “the science of lineage improvement” had its scientific foundations in the biological and medical advances of the day, especially with respect to inherited characteristics. Eugenics sought to follow these intertwining findings in medicine and biology to achieve the social and biological advancement of the human species. All of this was connected to the pretensions and interests of different countries in relation to issues of colonization, emigration and immigration, and the problems generated by criminality, prostitution, alcoholism, infant mortality, and the transmission of epidemics and diseases, among others. This meant that any legal system which sought to regulate these questions would have to intervene in the creation of a better population. Toward this end, doctors, biologists, sociologists and lawyers staked out significant roles for themselves in the area of social control.