Alex > Recent Status Updates

Epilepsy, delirium tremens and consumption? All genetic, according to the early eugenicists.

Davenport thought pellagra was hereditary. That's pretty stupid.

"Sie hatte dabei auf keinen Bundesgenossen zu rechnen, sondern mußte sich leiten lassen von dem Gedanken, daß man lieber auf Popularität billiger Art verzichten muß, als gegen eine erkannte Wahrheit, eine vorliegende Notwendigkeit und die Stimme seines eigenen Gewissens zu handeln. Selbst wenn man dabei unterliegen würde, dann wäre dies immer noch ehrenvoller, als sich an einem durchschauten Verbrechen zu beteiligen.

Very good information in this book concerning von Schönerer, Gobineau, social darwinism and racialism and the anti-clerical tendencies of the Völkisch movement.

Galton was also an antisemite.

"And when, in 1871, the British Parliament and local governments appropriated 20,000 pounds sterling for "providing the people of England with gratuitous vaccination," the British Medical Journal observed with dimity that, at the same time, "in Ireland, only 400 pounds per year is spent on the same object," a bit of Realpolitik that proved particularly deadly during the smallpox epidemics of 1871, 1872, and 1873."

In the last pages, Leadbetter actually presented good reasons for not taking Lactantius at face value. Overall, Eusebius seems to me the more truthful source, but I thought so before I read this book.

Now he argues that Lactantius' lack of detail on Diocletians death proves he made the facts about Galerius' demise up. I'd argue the opposite. I'd also argue it was entirely possible for Lactantius to know the details of Galerius' sickness, because while he wasn't a witness, he was a contemporary, and presumably, the story would travel.