Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1721

BENEDICT AUGUSTE MOREL (1809-1873) Traité des dégénérescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l'espèce humaine. J. B. Baillière 1857 xix [1] 700 pp. 20.7 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 1720

Morel was instrumental in developing the psychiatric theory of degeneration and fully reports his findings in the present work. It was his belief that mental degeneration was caused by abnormal deviations, such as hereditary defects, which ultimately resulted in extinction. The chief cause of degeneration was heredity but other causes included social conditions, congenital defects, immorality, pathological behavior, epidemic diseases, and drug abuse or addiction. His idea of the progressive nature of degeneration held that "One generation might be simply nervous, for example; the next generation would be more nervous; the third might be entirely psychotic; the fourth generation would exhibit a full-blown degenerate state; and any future generations would be so demented that the family would become extinct" (Franz G. Alexander and Sheldon T. Selesnick, The history of psychiatry. New York, 1966. p. 162. The University of Iowa Libraries' copy is lacking the atlas which contains twelve plates.

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 2297