Degenerates

DEGENERATES (from Latin de- negative and genus- genus), degenerating individuals (the doctrine of degeneration - see Degeneration). Since this term has become widely used in psychiatric practice, only its specific features should be noted. Intellectually, degenerates can exhibit all levels of talent, from the highest (so-called degeneres superiores of French authors) down to oligophrenics-mentally retarded from birth. However, even those degenerates who are well-developed intellectually show superficiality of thought, inability to concentrate for long periods, and inability to think things through. Usually, these defects are accompanied by an excessively active imagination, undisciplined by critical control, which leads degenerates to evaluate their fantasies as reality; hence follows a tendency to exaggeration and lying. Degeneration affects the emotional-volitional sphere most deeply. The thoughts and actions of degenerates are in constant contradiction with each other; their decisions cannot be accounted for or predicted, as degenerates are most often unable to regulate their feelings, affects, and inclinations. Hence arise defects in moral sense, which gave the Italian anthropologist Lombroso occasion to create his famous theory of the born criminal. Along with psychological characteristics, physical signs of degeneration are distinguished: features of skull structure (macrocephaly and microcephaly), asymmetry of the face, abnormally shaped teeth and ears (attached earlobe, etc.), sexual anomalies. This also includes congenital anomalies in the structure of internal organs and physiological functions (deaf-mutism, speech defects, stuttering, tremors, color blindness, etc.). The signs of degeneration have relative significance and, by themselves, without relation to the entire personality, cannot have decisive importance. Modern science, taking into account the significance of the external environment and so-called exogenous factors, does not regard degeneration as highly as older authors who attributed fatal importance to heredity. Along with degeneration, modern science also notes progeneration, i.e., progressive improvement of hereditary traits. In modern psychiatry, the doctrine of degeneration has evolved into the doctrine of pathological constitutions or psychopathies. Lit.-see Degenerative psychoses. S. Tsetlin.