ABSTRACT
Eugenics is a highly charged term, which provides entry to a complex history. The range of definitions and understandings of eugenics that have prevailed since the late nineteenth century hampers any attempt to provide an authoritative definition of the word. In fact, it is instructive to look at the ways in which such definitions have changed over time (see Koch 2006). However, most present-day works on the history of eugenics define the concept with
reference to the British statistician and polymath Francis Galton. In 1883 he was searching for a
brief word to express the science of improving stock … which takes cognisance of all influences that tend, in however remote a degree, to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.
