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A rise of interest in issues of heredity and advances in medicine in the nineteenth century resulted in the widespread medicalization of social phenomena. Theories formulated in the field of natural sciences increasingly served as a tool to explain unacceptable patterns of social behaviour, including prostitution which began to be seen as a biologically determined condition. As a main channel for the spread of STDs – some of them potentially transmissible across generations (congenital syphilis) – prostitution became one of the major concerns of medical professionals. Thus, what was previously a sin and an insult to middle-class moral standards, now came to be seen as a health menace to the entire population. In times of increased competition between nation-states, the latter argument played an even more important role, and the ruling elites sought to tighten control over what they perceived as 'dangerous bodies'. As campaigners against the 'great social evil' also analysed prostitutes' social milieu, discourses on the causes of prostitution were highly confusing. One source of confusion was Morel's theory of degeneration, in which the author skilfully combined environmental influence with the concept of hereditary pathology. Additionally, some authors still adhered to a much older explanation for social ills. The construction of an evil 'Other' – typically unscrupulous Jew – responsible for planting various physical and/or moral 'plagues' in a victimized population, thus threatening its biological existence. The fear of deterioration, inevitably leading to extinction, unified proponents of old-style and modernist anti-vice campaigners. This article offers an overview of expert narratives on the causes of prostitution in the early decades of twentieth century Poland. ; p. 85-121 ; 23 cm ; A rise of interest in issues of heredity and advances in medicine in the nineteenth century resulted in the widespread medicalization of social phenomena. Theories formulated in the field of natural sciences increasingly served as a tool to explain unacceptable patterns of social behaviour, including prostitution which began to be seen as a biologically determined condition. As a main channel for the spread of STDs – some of them potentially transmissible across generations (congenital syphilis) – prostitution became one of the major concerns of medical professionals. Thus, what was previously a sin and an insult to middle-class moral standards, now came to be seen as a health menace to the entire population. In times of increased competition between nation-states, the latter argument played an even more important role, and the ruling elites sought to tighten control over what they perceived as 'dangerous bodies'. As campaigners against the 'great social evil' also analysed prostitutes' social milieu, discourses on the causes of prostitution were highly confusing. One source of confusion was Morel's theory of degeneration, in which the author skilfully combined environmental influence with the concept of hereditary pathology. Additionally, some authors still adhered to a much older explanation for social ills. The construction of an evil 'Other' – typically unscrupulous Jew – responsible for planting various physical and/or moral 'plagues' in a victimized population, thus threatening its biological existence. The fear of deterioration, inevitably leading to extinction, unified proponents of old-style and modernist anti-vice campaigners. This article offers an overview of expert narratives on the causes of prostitution in the early decades of twentieth century Poland. ; s. 85-121 ; 23 cm

The history of eugenics and racial nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe is a neglected topic of analysis in contemporary scholarship. The 20 essays in this volume, written by distinguished scholars of eugenics and fascism alongside a new generation of scholars, excavate the hitherto unknown eugenics movements in Central and Southeast Europe, including Austria and Germany. Eugenics and racial nationalism are topics that have constantly been marginalized and rated as incompatible with local national traditions in Central and Southeast Europe. These topics receive a new treatment here. On the one hand, the historiographic perspective connects developments in the history of anthropology and eugenics with political ideologies such as racial nationalism and anti-Semitism; on the other hand, it contests the 'Sonderweg' approach adopted by scholars dealing with these issues

Following decades of silence about the involvement of doctors, medical researchers and other health professionals in the Holocaust and other National Socialist (Nazi) crimes, scholars in recent years have produced a growing body of research that reveals the pervasive extent of that complicity. This interdisciplinary collection of studies presents documentation of the critical role medicine played in realizing the policies of Hitler's regime. It traces the history of Nazi medicine from its roots in the racial theories of the 1920s, through its manifestations during the Nazi period, on to legacies and continuities from the postwar years to the present