Eugenic doctrines or measures (from the Greek “well born”) aim at improving the genome of the human population or of individual population groups (positive eugenics) or at preventing its degeneration (negative eugenics). The term eugenics was established, in this sense, in the late 19th century by the British natural scientist Francis Galton; however, eugenic ideas had already been expressed in the ancient world (e.g. by Plato). Not least because of their use for political and racist purposes in the National Socialist era in Germany, which, under the term of “racial hygiene” (Rassenhygiene), led to the mass destruction of what was called “life unworthy of life”, eugenic ideas and measures are highly controversial.