In 1857, B.
A. Morel invented a new disease entity he called degeneration to account
for conditions like consumption (tuberculosis) and cretinism (a form of
mental retardation). Germs and nutritional
deficits, the real causes of these disorders, were not well understood when
Morel wrote, so doctors took his fanciful theory seriously. According
to Morel, many diseases which look quite different on the surface are caused
by degeneration, a process which results from damaged heredity and is,
sadly, untreatable.
Richard
von Krafft-Ebing applied Morel's theory to "sexual
psychopaths," especially sexual inverts, and even though the disease
Morel imagined never existed, "degenerate" persists as a
derogatory expression for gays.
