78 be the first on degeneration in man thereby ignoring Savoyen‘s 139 Nouvelles études philosphiques sur la dégénération physique et morale de l’homme, which had appeared in Paris three years earlier. What is quite transparent, however, is Buchez‘ long-term conviction of the reality of human degeneration interpreted from a perspective strongly colored by Catholic, moral considerations. Assuredly, degeneration theory was not Morel‘s invention.
6) Bénédict Morel, Degeneration Theory in the Evolution of Aliénisme
The physician Bénédict-Augustin Morel 140 has been repeatedly described, however, as the originator of degeneration theory (Haupert 43; Dowbiggin, Professional 314; Martindale 177; Gold 38; Scheider 224; Fuentes Peris 111). If one follows the OED definition of a theory as, ―scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena,‖ however, it will be apparent that the theory in this sense was widespread in the Enlightenment well before Morel. As explained above, the more extended form of the theory to include madness, alcoholism and the moral ills associated with urban poverty was fully expounded by physicians like Bertulus, Savoyen and Buchez before Morel‘s landmark treatise of 1857. In my view, therefore, Morel should be more properly regarded as the route of major diffusion of degeneration theory into mainstream French psychiatry by virtue of his books, articles in the Annales Médico-psychologiques, and his medico-
L. Savoyen: of Moùtiers, director of thermal baths at Salins at Tarataise and investigator of cretinism and goitre. In 1856, he wrote on cholera and its relation to climate. 140 Bénédict-Augustin Morel (1809-1873): French physician, aliéniste and writer. A former candidate for the priesthood, he studied under the aliéniste Jean-Pierre Falret, was influenced by Prosper Lucas and was a friend of Claude Bernard. Becoming a doctor in 1839, he was appointed physician-in-chief at the asylum of Maréville in 1848 and, in 1856 until his death, was medical director of the asylum of St-Yon near Rouen. 139