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Medicine The Races of Man: a Fragment. By
Robert Knox

n 1850, Robert Knox in The Races of Man: A All we know is that since the begin-
Fragment took popular prejudices and formed ning of history, the dark races have been the
Ithem into “scientifi c conviction” that race and slaves of those lighter skinned. What is that
intelligence are linked and hereditary. Robert Knox due to? ‘I feel disposed to think that there
was a famous English anatomist. Knox concluded that must be a physical and consequentially, a
people of color were intellectually inferior, not be- psychological inferiority in the dark races
cause of brain size but rather because of brain texture generally.’ This is perhaps not due to lack of
and lack of nerve endings. Later it was found that his size in the brain but rather a lack of quality
conclusion was based on the autopsy of only one man in it.
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of color.

Knox’s studies and others were taken very seri-
ously, which can be seen as the origins of the 20th
Century Eugenics movement.

Illusration from Races of Man by Robert Knox – 1850.

Eugenics

ugenics is an effort to breed better human be- Elements of the American eugenics movement
ings by encouraging the reproduction of people were models for the Nazis, whose radical adaptation
Ewith “good” genes and discouraging those with of eugenics culminated in the Holocaust.
“bad” genes. Eugenicists effectively lobbied for social
legislation to keep racial and ethnic groups separate, The United States took Eugenics and ran with
to restrict immigration from Asia, Africa and southern it, making it part of mainstream society. By 1928,
and eastern Europe, and to sterilize people considered 376 separate college courses, which enrolled 20,000
“genetically unfi t. students focused on Eugenics. And an analysis of high
school text books from 1914 to 1948 indicates that the
majority presented Eugenics as legitimate.
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6 The Construction of Race & Racism The Construction of Race & Racism 7