Talk:Eliot Slater

Eugenics

Slater was a member of the British Eugenics society and chaired one its discussions (on sex ratios in different populations) at its sixth annual symposium. See doi:10.1017/S0021932000023452

In DOI: 10.1177/0020764008090282, David Pilgrim points out Slater's "German eugenics in practice" in the Eugenics Review (1936) is a dry description of the practical aspects of the program and reflects no outrage or even an express objection. The original article is here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2985526/. It is not our place to include our own comments on the paper directly in this article. But the hagiographical "outraged and sickened" by Nazi Germany is an extreme not supported by neutral sources. And, yes, membership in the Eugenics society is relevant. We can just state the bare facts and leave interpretations to readers. Churn and change (talk) 20:04, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Looks like above comment has been ignored for over two years to date. One of Slater's concluding remarks in that piece is actually "There is little doubt that these measures will have at least a partial success".

This article seems somewhat evasive about what Slater got up to in general. For example he appears to have engaged in tne promotion and widespread use of lobotomy and insulin coma treatments and so forth, including alongside his close associate the rather notorious William Sargant. Wishfulness (talk) 15:38, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Sourcing

Not very clear, can someone help?

The article on Eliot Slater in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ("DNB") - This is a subscription only website.

The obituaries cited in that article. - surely this is not adequate citation details for a WP article, esp. given the above?

The Autobiographical Sketch in Man, Mind and Heredity (v.sub). - what the hell does v.sub mean?

Wishfulness (talk) 13:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

p.s. the DNB article, it's not even possible to see who the author is. There's a 2006 bio with same title which is by Irving Gottesman who, and you wouldn't guess it from his Wikipedia article, appears to have worked with Slater and was a senior member of what was the American Eugenics Society, advocating eugenics based on assessment of the socioeconomic value. Wishfulness (talk) 22:46, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

For the record, regarding Slater participating in the Festschrift for Rudin in 1939, I'll put the full paassge from the source here because Google preview misses out page 312[1] - it seems to be saying he personally visited Munich and met with the others there, but just in case there's any doubt or any other sources could be found:

He also contributed a methodologically interesting article (on the probability of manifestation of genetic dispositions) to the Festschrift on the occasion of Rüdin’s 65th birthday. The birthday celebrations were held in Munich, where members of various political institutions of the regime met with researchers from the DFA and the international scientific community. The contributions were published in a special issue entitled “Rüdin-Festschrift” of the Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, the journal of the German Association of Neurologists and Psychiatrists, of which Rüdin was the president. 70 After an introduction by Luxenburger, Herbert Linden, physician and head of the Medizinalabteilung of the Ministry of the Interior, presented a paper on the “fight against sexual delinquency with medical means”. Kurt Pohlisch, a close personal friend of Rüdin and professor of psychiatry at Bonn University, as well as director of the second-largest research institute on psychiatric genetics in Germany, contributed considerations on the family method. Rüdin’s and Pohlisch’s common pupil Friedrich Panse presented a paper about a new “genetic order of human hereditary syndromes”.71 The international community was represented by Slater, Essen-Möller and the Swiss pupil of Rüdin, Carl Brugger.72

The notes are:

70 See the Table of Contents (1939). Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie 112 („Rüdin-Festschrift“).

71 Linden was a central administrative figure in the implementation of the Nazi programme of patient killings (“euthanasia”), and that both Pohlisch and Panse belonged to the expert advisors (Gutachter) for the initial phase of this programme (Aktion T4); the close relation between Pohlisch and Rüdin is also documented by the fact that Pohlisch held the funeral eulogy after Rüdin’s death in 1952.

72 On Brugger’s programme in psychiatric genetics at the University of Basel and his relation to the Munich group, see: Ritter and Roelcke, 2005, 263-288.

Also page 316 says in passing: "Like Slater, Essen-Möller participated in the celebration of Rüdin’s 65th birthday in Munich in 1939".

Also in the general references is Slater's article in the Festschrift but I can't see where the text might be available online ("On the Concept and Applicability of the Probability of Manifestation". Original title: "Über Begriff und Anwendbarkeit der Manifestationswahrscheinlichkeit" In Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und ihre Grenzgebiete, Vol. 112, pp. 148-152, April 1939. Trans. by J. and E. J. Shields.)

Dunno if any german speakers can tell if anything on this page helps confirm [2]

Wishfulness (talk) 14:14, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure what help you are asking for.

"v.sub" is probably short for "vide sub", Latin for "see below".

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a reliable source. But I see no citation of it in the article.

Maproom (talk) 16:46, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying 'v sub'. The citations remaining in the 'Sources' section (I spent a considerable time moving the rest inline and adding more inline), you see no problem with them?? Wishfulness (talk) 00:01, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh well managed to get the text of the bio and sorted it out myself (minus citation to 'obituaries' which is not one citation identifying one source). Interesting that this Wiki article, unlike the bio, had relegated his eugenics activities to an 'outside interest' and omitted the monogenic theory he was known for. I am still asking for any view or consensus on whether the above quote about Rudin's 65th birthday clearly proves that Slater attended in Munich in person, or could be slightly misleading. Wishfulness (talk) 22:26, 24 February 2015 (UTC)