Eugenics in Japan

Eugenics in Japan has influenced political, public health and social movements in Japan since the late 19th and early 20th century.Originally brought to Japan through the United States (like Charles Davenport and John Coulter), through Mendelian Inheritance by way of German influences, and French Lamarkian eugenic written studies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Eugenics as a science was hotly debated at the beginning of the 20th, in Jinsei-Der Mensch, the first eugenics journal in the Empire. As the Japanese sought to close ranks with the West, this practice was adopted wholesale, along with colonialism and its justifications.

The concept of pure blood as a criterion for the uniqueness of the Yamato people began circulating around 1880 in Japan, while eugenics in the sense of instrumental and selective procreation, clustered around two positions concerning blood, the and the .

Popularity of the pure-blood eugenics theory came from a homegrown racial purity or monoculture national belief that has been part of Japanese society since ancient times. The local movement was however less focused on modern scientific ideals and more on the "outside person" vs the "native or inside person" and blood purity.

Later legal measures were supported by certain politicians and movements that sought to increase the number of healthy pure Japanese, while...
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