Renato Ferraz Kehl (August 22, 1889 – August 14, 1978) was a Brazilian pharmacist, physician, writer and

eugenicist Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetics, genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human Phenotype, phenotypes by ...

from the early 20th century.

Career

Graduated from the Rio de Janeiro School of Medicine in 1915, Renato Kehl, of Germanic origin, worked at the beginning of his career at the National Department of Public Health (DNSP), carrying out activities focused on rural sanitation and hygiene and sanitary education. From the end of the 1920s, he became a businessman in the pharmaceutical industry, standing out as Director of

Bayer Bayer AG (English: , commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies and biomedical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer' ...

in Brazil. His name would become best known for his tireless dedication to

eugenics Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...

, which he called "the religion of humanity". For the writer

Monteiro Lobato José Bento Renato Monteiro Lobato (; 18 April 1882 – 4 July 1948) was one of Brazil's most influential writers, mostly for his children's books set in the fictional Sítio do Picapau Amarelo (Yellow Woodpecker Farm) but he had been previous ...

, with whom he maintained a close friendship and considerable intellectual affinities, Kehl should be considered the "father of eugenics in Brazil", given his commitment to organizing the Brazilian eugenics movement. He was elected member of the

Academia Nacional de Medicina The Academia Nacional de Medicina (ANM) is the Brazilian national academy of medicine. The academy was founded during the Brazilian imperial period on 30 June 1829, under the name of ''Sociedade de Medicina do Rio de Janeiro''. On 8 Ma ...

in 1932, succeeding in Chair 93, which has as its patron.

Renato Kehl and eugenics in Brazil

Renato Kehl's adherence to the ideas formulated by

Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911) was an English polymath and the originator of eugenics during the Victorian era; his ideas later became the basis of behavioural genetics. Galton produced over 340 papers and b ...

, the founder of the eugenics doctrine, allowed him to dedicate his career to organizing the Brazilian eugenics movement, especially between the 1910s and 1930s, a period in which racial theories and discussions about Brazilian nationality structured the way travelers, writers, intellectuals, and scientists interpreted Brazil. In 1918, with the collaboration of a group of Brazilian doctors, he founded the Eugenics Society of São Paulo, an institution that had more than a hundred members, including

, , Afrânio Peixoto, ,

Vital Brazil Vital Brazil Mineiro da Campanha, known as Vital Brazil (April 28, 1865 – May 8, 1950), was a Brazilian physician, biomedical scientist and immunologist, known for the discovery of the polyvalent anti-ophidic serum used to treat bites of ven ...

, , Juliano Moreira, and other important intellectual leaders of the time. A decade later, he created the ''Boletim de Eugenia'', a periodical that circulated between 1929 and 1933 and which became known for its dissemination of eugenic measures among Brazilians. During this same period, in addition to collaborating with the organization of the First Brazilian Congress of Eugenics, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1929, he also founded the Brazilian Central Commission of Eugenics, whose objective was to assist the Brazilian government in matters related to the eugenic improvement of the country. Between 1910 and 1930, Renato Kehl published more than a dozen books on eugenics, notably ''Lições de Eugenia'' (1929) and ''Sexo e cidadania - aparas eugénias'' (1933), works that would be characterized by the author's greater proximity to 'negative eugenics', a radical model of eugenics that was characterized by the defense of extreme measures, such as the eugenic sterilization of "degenerates", marital and reproductive control and the racial selection of immigrants. During the 1930s, his adherence to this more radical eugenics led the Brazilian eugenicist to publicly praise the Nazi eugenics policy launched in Germany by

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

. His activism in favor of eugenics science, although it brought him to the forefront, making him relevant for the understanding of this movement in Brazilian social and scientific history, was not capable of producing, absolutely, a consensus in the understanding of the bases and proposals for the application of eugenics in the intellectual environment of the time.

Bibliography

* BONFIM, Paulo Ricardo. ''Educar, Higienizar e Regenerar: Uma História da Eugenia no Brasil''. Jundiaí, SP: Paco Editorial, 2017. * CARVALHO, Leonardo Dallacqua de. ''A eugenia no humor da Revista Ilustrada Careta: raça e cor no Governo Provisório (1930-1934)''. 2014. 315 School of Sciences and Letters, São Paulo State University “Júlio de Mesquita Filho”, Assis, 2014. * SOUZA, Vanderlei Sebastião de. ''A política biológica como projeto: a “eugenia negativa” e a construção da nacionalidade na trajetória de Renato Kehl (1917-1932)''. Fiocruz, 2006. * Souza, V. S. ''Renato Kehl e a eugenia no Brasil: ciência, raça e nação no entreguerras.'' Eduni, 2019. * STEPAN, Nancy. ''“A Eugenia no Brasil – 1917 a 1940”''. In: HOCHMAN, Gilberto. & ARMUS, Diego (orgs). ''Cuidar, Controlar, Curar: ensaios históricos sobre saúde e doença na América Latina e Caribe.'' Rio de Janeiro: Ed.Fiocruz. p. 331-391, 2004.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kehl, Renato 1889 births 1978 deaths Brazilian people of German descent 20th-century Brazilian physicians 20th-century Brazilian writers Brazilian pharmacists Members of the Brazilian Academy of Medicine White supremacists

Career

Renato Kehl and eugenics in Brazil

Bibliography

See also

References