Abstract
IN December 1932 a new eugenic law was enacted in the State of Vera Cruz, which has the largest population in Mexico. A Bureau of Eugenics and Mental Hygiene was organised as a part of the Health Department of the State. This Department has been engaged in eliminating smallpox and yellow fever, and has also greatly reduced the frequency of hook-worm, its sanitary services being in co-operation with the Mexican Government and the Rockefeller Foundation. The new Bureau is thus included in a public service and has large powers. Free birth control clinics were instituted, and sterilisation provided for in serious cases of unfitness and inadaptability. This is the culmination of a series of reforms made by Governor Tejada, which included the suppression of saloons, compulsory sex education in the schools, mandatory medical treatment for venereal disease and a new civil code which entailed eugenical provisions in matters of marriage and divorce. By the new regulations, which are given in full (Amer. J. Psychiatry, 13, No. 2) by Dr. S. Men-doza, who drafted the bill, provisions are made through the Bureau of Eugenics and Mental Hygiene not only for the dissemination of information but also for the control of sterilisation of persons suffering from hereditary diseases or from conditions which the Bureau, considers to be “a cause of biological degeneration or mental deficiency in their offspring”.
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Eugenics in Vera Cruz. Nature 133, 134–135 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133134d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133134d0