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HISTORY/Europe/Italy

CEU Press Studies in the History of Medicine B Francesco Cassata Building the New Man Eugenics, Racial Science and Genetics in Twentieth-Century Italy Francis Galton’s gospel was quickly spread around the world. In 1924, a report of the In- ternational Commission of Eugenics published in Eugenical News listed fifteen countries in which eugenics had assumed an institutional connotation: England, Germany, the United States, Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Czecho- slovakia, Norway, Argentina, Cuba and Russia. Countries that were realizing forms of cooperation with the International Commission included Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, Australian and New Zealand. 1 In the same year, a bibliography dedi- cated to eugenic issues already counted 7,500 titles, including monographs and articles. Outlining the problem Building the New Man i Introduction CEU Press Studies in the History of Medicine Volume III Series Editor: Marius Turda 5 Published in the series: Svetla Baloutzova Demography and Nation Social Legislation and Population Policy in Bulgaria, 1918–1944 C Christian Promitzer · Sevasti Trubeta · Marius Turda, eds. Health, Hygiene and Eugenics in Southeastern Europe to 1945 ii Outlining the problem Building the New Man Eugenics, Racial Science and Genetics in Twentieth-Century Italy Francesco Cassata Translated by Erin O’Loughlin Central European University Press Budapest—New York iii Introduction © 2011 by Francesco Cassata English translation © 2010, Erin O’Loughlin This is an extended version of the 2006 Italian edition Molti, sani e forti. L’eugenetica in Italia, by Bollati Boringhieri Editore, Torino Published in 2011 by Central European University Press An imprint of the Central European University Limited Company Nбdor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary Tel: +36-1-327-3138 or 327-3000 · Fax: +36-1-327-3183 E-mail: ceupress@ceu.hu Website: www.ceupress.com 400 West 59th Street, New York NY 10019, USA Tel: +1-212-547-6932 · Fax: +1-646-557-2416 E-mail: mgreenwald@sorosny.org All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher. The translation of this work has been funded by SEPS SEGRETARIATO EUROPEO PER LE PUBBLICAZIONI SCIENTIFICHE Via Val d’Aposa 7 - 40123 Bologna - Italy seps@seps.it · www.seps.it ISBN 978-963-9776-83-8 cloth ISSN 2079-1119 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cassata, Francesco. [Molti, sani e forti. English] Building the new man : eugenics, racial science and genetics in twentieth-century Italy / Francesco Cassata ; translated by Erin O’Loughlin. p. cm. -- (CEU Press studies in the history of medicine ; v. 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-9639776838 (hbk.) 1. Eugenics--Italy--History. I. O’Loughlin, Erin. II. Title. HQ755.5.I8C3713 2010 363.9’2--dc22 2010039399 Printed in Hungary by Akadйmiai Nyomda, Martonvбsбr iv Outlining the problem To my parents, Adele and Letterio v Outlining the problem c o n t en t s Acknowledgements Introduction ix 1 CHAPTER I Between Lombroso and Pareto: the Italian Way to Eugenics 1. Lombroso’s Way: the Problem of Degeneration 2. Pareto’s Way: the Problem of the Elite 3. The Italian Committee of Eugenic Studies 9 10 21 40 CHAPTER II Eugenics and Dysgenics of War 1. War as Counter-selection 2. War as Gymnasium 3. War as Laboratory 4. Eugenics and the “Sons of the Enemy” 43 44 55 58 64 CHAPTER III Regenerating Italy (1919–1924) 1. Ettore Levi and the IPAS Campaign for Birth Control 2. A Concrete Proposal: Premarital Certificates 3. Sterilization and Euthanasia 4. The Work of the “Useless”: Mental Hygiene in Italy vii 69 75 90 107 118 CONTENTS CHAPTER IV Quality through Quantity: Eugenics in Fascist Italy 135 1. Corrado Gini’s Hegemony: Demography 147 and “Regenerative” Eugenics 2. Constitutionalism and “Latin” Eugenics: Nicola Pende’s 192 Biotypological Institute 3. Demography and Biotypology: the Laboratory of Statistics 214 at Milan Catholic University CHAPTER V Eugenics and Racism (1938–1943) 1. Biological Racism and Hereditarian Eugenics 2. Environmentalist Eugenics: Psychological and Anthropo-geographical Racism 3. Esoteric-traditionalist Racism and Eugenics: Julius Evola 4. Assortative Mating and Racism 5. Toward a National Genetic Center 223 225 246 263 268 272 CHAPTER VI Toward a New Eugenics 1. SIGE Schisms: Genetics against Eugenics 2. From Premarital Examination to Genetic Counseling 3. Eugenics and Catholic Medical Genetics: Luigi Gedda and the “Gregorio Mendel” Institute 285 288 309 335 CHAPTER VII Against UNESCO: Italian Eugenics and American Scientific Racism 1. The IAAEE and The Mankind Quarterly (1959–1965) 2. Meticciato di Guerra: Luigi Gedda and Reginald Ruggles Gates 3. Corrado Gini and the “Guerrilla War” against UNESCO 4. Epilogue: Race and Modern Science 353 354 356 362 378 Conclusions Bibliography Index of Names 381 387 419 viii Outlining the problem ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Research and writing for this book has been supported by many institu- tions and individuals. My first debt of gratitude is to Marius Turda, for his support and guidance during the process of revision, translation and pub- lication of the book. Discussions with colleagues at seminars and confer- ences where I presented my work helped in clarifying many of my argu- ments: I would like to mention in particular the workshop on Regards croisйs sur l’hйrйditй pathologique et l’essor de la gйnйtique humaine au XXe siи- cle. Une histoire comparйe Italie-France, organized by the CERMES (CNRS- INSERM-EHESS) and the Institute for the History of Medicine in Rome (5 December 2005); the conference on Eugenics, Modernization and Biopol- itics, organized by the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Science, in cooperation with the Working Group on the History of Race and Eugen- ics, Oxford Brookes University (17–19 April 2008); and the workshop on Human Heredity in the Twentieth Century (A Cultural History of Heredity V), organized by the ESRC Research Centre for Genomics in Society (Univer- sity of Exeter), in collaboration with the Centre for Medical History of the University of Exeter and the Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Sci- ence in Berlin (2–4 September, 2010). Research on the book would not have been possible without the help of many librarians and archivists: for their substantial help with bibliographic and archival research I would like to thank the staff of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi in Turin; the Institute for the History of Medicine in Rome; the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome; the American Philosophical Soci- ety in Philadelphia. Many people have made comments and criticisms of the arguments developed here. I owe special thanks to Luc Berlivet, Mauro Capocci, Gil- ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS berto Corbellini, Giovanni Favero, Massimo Moraglio, Claudio Pogliano, Sandro Rinauro, Paul J. Weindling. Anna Treves, until her untimely death, was a friend and a mentor. This book owes a great deal to her understanding of population studies in twen- tieth century Italy. Francesco Cassata March 2011 x