Babies in the Right Place
“Babies in the Right Place” was the catch cry of the Society for Constructive Birth Control (C.B.C.), but what did it actually mean? Three artifacts provide the best explanation in … Continue reading
The steady evil
With these words, Dr Marie Stopes explained why she set up the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress in 1921 to support her Holloway Mothers’ Clinic. The activities of the … Continue reading
Exterminate poverty
Dr Marie Stopes and Mr Humphrey Roe opened the first birth control clinic in the British Empire on 17th March 1921. Sir James Barr recognised that dispensing contraceptives could be … Continue reading
The marriage of undesirables
Sir James Barr made a speech The Future of the Medical Profession on 21st September 1918. At the time, tuberculosis killed 70,000 and disabled 150,000 people in Britain each year. … Continue reading
Check the unfit
“The bulk of the tuberculous belong to stocks which we want ab initio to discourage. Everything which tends to check the multiplication of the unfit, to emphasize the at the fertility of the physically … Continue reading
Race breeders
“There are some self-styled eugenists—…race breeders with the souls of cattle-breeders—who declaim that the prevention of disease is not in itself a good thing. They say the efficiency of … Continue reading
On miracles
On miracles, Dr Sutherland wrote: Mental attitudes towards miracles are often curious. Thus a person may blindly believe that the astral body of a fakir has been seen walking about … Continue reading
Positive eugenics?
Some correspondents read the word “negative eugenics” in a recent infographic in the sense of “reprehensible”. Why specify “negative,” they asked, when surely all eugenic measures are reprehensible? Did “negative” imply that there … Continue reading
New feature: infographics
Understanding the life of Dr Halliday Sutherland involves the getting to grips with the legal, medical, political, religious and social issues of his era. This has meant that the historical … Continue reading
St Henry
This grisly scene took place on the icy surface of Lake Köyliön in 1157. Dr Sutherland explains: Bishop Henry was an Englishman and probably of Norman descent. On a winter’s day in … Continue reading
Recent Comments