Making medicine scientific: John Burdon Sanderson and the culture of Victorian science

of pain-killing drugs. In the 1870s, the debate was primarily philosophical rather than medical. Nevertheless, the discussion drew on technological advances such as chloroform; ideas about a person's comparative worth; the fashion for social Darwinism; and palliative care. Similarly in the early 1900s, Kemp links proposals for euthanasia to the contemporary vogue for eugenics-though he is always cautious about the exact relationship between the two. One of the strong points of the book is that it fills in the "missing link", and explores discussions of mercy killing in the period 1910-30. Kemp argues convincingly that the First World War strongly influenced views on death. But again euthanasia embraced both mercy killing for the compos mentis, and non-mercy killing for the mentally defective. In the 1930s, the Voluntary Euthanasia Legalisation Society was centred on the Midlands city of Leicester, where, as earlier, euthanasia was linked to perceptions about the rising incidence of cancer. Kemp argues that opposition to the 1936 Bill was based on objections to the altruistic dimension and fear of a "slippery slope" type argument. The effects of the Nazi euthanasia programme are seen as critical to the failure ofthe 1950 Bill, although Kemp is also appropriately cautious about the links between Germany and Britain in this period. At the same time, he provides a important discussion ofnon-voluntary euthanasia from 1941. In contrast, the 1950s were a "difficult decade", when progress was hindered by an effective opposition, an ageing membership, the loss of leaders, and by developments in palliative care that seemed to offer an alternative to euthanasia. Ironically, the euthanasia movement recovered in the 1960s, mainly because of more consistent leadership, shortcomings in palliative care, and advances in medical technology. Debates in this period reflected the 1961 Suicide Act, but also drew on the experiences of the thalidomide tragedy and ongoing debates about spina bifida. Rather than doing too little, medicine was now seen as doing too much, and there was more focus on the quality rather than the quantity of life (p. 186). Even so, the 1969 Bill was unsuccessful, making euthanasia something of an exception to other liberal legislation of the 1960s. Kemp summarizes some of these themes in the conclusion-the problematic nature of the term; the link between cancer and euthanasia; and the relationship with eugenics-but also provides an overview of debates from the late 1960s to the present day, looking at religious attitudes, the …