Racial hygiene, active euthanasia, and Julius Hallervorden.

“Hallervorden-Spatz disease” represents a distinctive and readily recognizable eponym to neurologists and pediatricians; it denotes a rare, inherited, autosomal recessive disorder tha t is perhaps a neuraxonal dystrophy, characterized by the childhood onset of unrelenting progressive gait disturbance, spasticity, and dementia associated with prominent extrapyramidal signs such as dystonia, chorea, and athetosis.lZ2 Pathologic examination reveals iron deposition in the basal ganglia and widely disseminated axonal spheroids.3 The eponym recalls Julius Hallervorden and Hugo Spatz, the prominent German neuropathologists who jointly delineated both the clinical and pathologic features of this disorder in two sibl i n g ~ . ~ ~ ~ The definitive German6 and English7 language biographies of Julius Hallervorden focus on his prodigious scientific talents and either ignore or gloss over his activities during World War 11. His active involvement in the child and “T4” euthanasia program (detailed below) raises troubling questions regarding the moral obligations and limitations of medical science.