ABSTRACT
Eugenics was the most popular theory of human improvement to emerge from the scientific world of the late nineteenth century, bringing together Darwinian biology, sociology, statistics, and various explanations of human heredity. Moral philosophers, theologians, health reformers, and politicians, they all embraced it, and often for the same reasons. By the time the First Eugenics International Congress convened in London in July 1912, eugenics was a global phenomenon. Eugenics societies were established not only in Berlin, London, and New York but also in Budapest. Transylvanian Saxon and Hungarian eugenicists such as Heinrich Siegmund and Géza von Hoffmann were not only fully acquainted with the latest eugenic debates in Germany, Britain, and the United States but also were themselves promoters of new eugenic ideas. They also spoke in the name of a new racial ideology that was beginning to prevail, particularly in pre-1918 Hungary, even though eugenics continued to arouse skepticism from scientists and the general public alike.
