‘We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock … especially in the case of man’, the influential English scientist Francis Galton wrote in 1883. ‘The word eugenics sufficiently expresses the idea.’ During the ensuing half century, Gallon's new word and the underlying theories that he had already begun developing from the evolutionary concepts advanced by his cousin, Charles Darwin, spread throughout the Western world. With Galton's blessing these theories spawned a political movement advocating the enactment (...) of statutes designed to encourage the propagation of eugenically fit human beings and discourage the propagation of eugenically unfit ones. Yet, while such laws were commonly adopted throughout North America and Northern Europe, the British homeland of Galton and Darwin proved reluctant to act by statutory fiat in the field of eugenics. (shrink)