Politisch-biologische Analogien im Frühwerk Rudolf Virchows

of their peaceful island, which both threatened their ageing industrial supremacy and recalled to them the restive barbarians at the peripheries of their far-flung empire. Pick shows convincingly how British doctors and writers alike used a language which enabled them to deny simultaneously the existence of degeneration in their land (and therefore its cure by political means) yet identify and stigmatize the social elements they most thoroughly feared. The book is based on a thorough knowledge of the most recent literature in this domain of historical writing. It is clearly written and straightforward about its methodological devices. Pick has made a remarkable contribution here to a comparative understanding of degeneration theory and suggested new ways to study the spread and the meaning of medical culture.