Abstract
Between 1870 and 1920 the concept of degeneration changed radically. Away from an organization principle of mental diseases, degeneration became progressively a disease entity capable of affecting the human species as a whole. In the French-speaking part of Switzerland, fear of a "degeneration of the race" reached considerable dimensions in the years around 1910. The study of the introduction and then diffusion of the degeneration concept reveals clearly the social commitment of the medical profession. Although the French-speaking Swiss psychiatrists showed no tendency to give clinical value to this concept, they are, howewer, at the origin, through this social discourse, of the success that the idea of degeneration had. Hygienist, antialcoholic and political environments took over the job to perpetuate this discourse and finally managed to empty the concept of degeneration of its substance.
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