`On the Question of Degeneration' by Emil Kraepelin (1908)1

Abstract

The introduction to this Classic Text draws on a new consensus among researchers in the history of eugenics to assess how Kraepelin articulated his eugenic ideas and put them into practice. It analyses his article `On the Question of Degeneration' and finds him not just giving voice to his deep concern for the German Volk , but also espousing neo-Lamarckian views and building a large-scale, clinically oriented, epidemiological research programme. The introduction situates this research programme in the context of Kraepelin's work in Munich before World War I.