The Swedish Institute for Racial Biology

Date: 02.06.2011
Country: Sweden
Section: chronicle
Tags: boy, swimming
Description: The State Institute for Racial Biology was a Swedish governmental research institute founded in 1922 with the stated purpose of studying eugenics and human genetics. It was located in Uppsala and as a governmental agency, it was the world's first of its kind. Its first head was Herman Lundborg.

For his doctoral dissertation, Lundborg had researched a form of genetic progressive myoclonic epilepsy first described by Heinrich Unverricht in 1891. In addition to giving an account of the disease, he traced an affected family back to the 18th century, an analysis unique for that time. He concluded that the family had genetically degenerated because of unwise marriages.

Under his leadership, the institute began gathering statistics and photographs to map the racial make-up of about 100,000 Swedish people. This research later became one of the foundations of a eugenic program of the Swedish government, which consisted of both voluntary and involuntary sterilisation of persons with negative genetic characteristics. The program was started in 1935 and lasted until 1975.
Video Added: 31.05.2020