ted.

The earliest advocacy of castration, which I have met with as a part of
negative eugenics, for the specific "purpose of prophylaxis as applied to
race improvement and the protection of society," is by Dr. F.E. Daniel, of
Texas, and dates from 1893.[447] Daniel mixed up, however, somewhat
inextricably, castration as a method of purifying the race, a method which
can be carried out with the concurrence of the individual operated on,
with castration as a punishment, to be inflicted for rape, sodomy,
bestiality, pederasty and even habitual masturbation, the method of its
performance, moreover, to be the extremely barbarous and primitive method
of total ablation of the sexual organs. In more recent years somewhat more
equitable, practical, and scientific methods of castration have been
advocated, not involving the removal of the sexual glands or organs, and
not as a punishment, but simply for the sake of protecting the community
and the race from the burden of probably unproductive and possibly
dangerous members. Naecke has, from 1899 onwards, repeatedly urged the
social advantages of this measure.[448] The propagation of the inferior
elements of society, Naecke insists, brings unhappiness into the family and
is a source of great expense to the State. He regards castration as the
only effective method of prevention, and concludes that it is, therefore,
our duty to adopt it, just as we have adopted vaccination, taking care to
secure the consent of the subject himself or his guardian, of the civil
authorities, and, if necessary, of a committee of experts. Professor
Angelo Zuccarelli of Naples has also, from 1899 onwards, emphasized the
importance of castration in the sterilization of the epileptic, the insane
of various classes, the alcoholic, the tuberculous, and instinctive
criminals, the choice of cases for operation to be made by a commission of
experts who would examine school-children, candidates for public
employments, or persons about to marry.[449] This movement rapidly gained
ground, and in 1905 at the annual meeting of Swiss alienists it was
unanimously agreed that the sterilization of the insane is desirable, and
that it is necessary that the question should be legally regulated. It is
in Switzerland, indeed, that the first steps have been taken in Europe to
carry out castration as a measure of social prophylaxis. The sixteenth
yearly report (1907) of the Cantonal asylum at Wil describes four cases of
castrati