This paper presents a brlef overview of some cultural, ecologic, and demographic influences on the treatment and maltreatment of infants and children with congenital anomalies. Based on research on the selective neglect of infants leading to death in parts of the developing world, it is suggested that such practices be viewed as “ethno-eugenic” survivalist strategies altogether distinct from malicious child abuse and neglect in the modern, industrialized world. Caution with respect to heroic (and not so heroic) medical interventions and “child saving” in the contexts of both developing and modern societies is stressed.
DouglasM. (1966). Purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo.New York: Praeger.
2.
EberlyS.S. (1988). Fairies and the folklore of disability: changelings, hybrids and the solitary fairy.Folklore99: 59–77.
3.
Evans-PritchardE.E. (1956). Nuerreligion.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4.
GilD. (1970). Violence against children: physical abuse in the United States.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
5.
GregorT. (1988). Infants are not precious to us: the psychological impact of neonaticide in a tropical forest society. 1988 Stirling Award paper, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Phoenix. Manuscript pages cited.
6.
HaffterC. (1968). The changeling: history and psychodynamics of attitudes to handicapped children in European folklore.J Hist Behav Sci4: 55–61.
7.
KorbinJ.E. (1981). Introduction. In: KorbinJ.E., ed. Child abuse and neglect: cross-cultural perspectives.Berkeley: University of California Press.
8.
LeVineR. (1974). Parental goals: a cross-cultural view.Teacher's College Rec76: 226–239.
9.
MorganL.M. (1989). When does life begin? In: DoerrE., PrescottJ.W., eds. Abortion rights and fetal personhood.Long Beach: Centerline Press.97–114.
10.
MullD.S., MullJ.D. (1987). Infanticide among the Tarahumara of the Mexican Sierra Madre. In: Scheper HughesN.M., ed. Child survival.Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 113–134.
11.
NewmanL.F. (1987). Fitness and survival. In: Scheper-HughesN.M., ed. Child survival.Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co.,135–144.
12.
SargentC.F. (1987). Born to die: the fate of extraordinary children in Bariba culture.Ethnology23: 79–96.
13.
Scheper-HughesN.M. (1979). Saints, scholars and schizophrenics: mental illness in rural Ireland.Berkeley: University of California Press.
14.
Scheper-HughesN.M. (1984). Infant mortality and infant care: cultural and economic constraints on nurturing in northeast Brazil.Soc Sci Med19: 535–546.
15.
Scheper-HughesN.M. (1985). Culture, scarcity and maternal thinking.Ethos13: 291–317.
16.
Scheper-HughesN.M. (1987a). Basic strangeness: maternal estrangement and infant death - a critique of bonding theory. In: SuperC.M., ed. The role of culture in developmental disorder.New York: Academic Press. 131–153.
17.
Scheper-HughesN.M. (1987b). The cultural politics of child survival. In: Scheper-HughesN.M., ed. Child survival: anthropological approaches to the treatment and maltreatment of children.Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co,1–32.
18.
Scheper-HughesN.M. (1988). The madness of hunger: sickness, delirium, and human needs.Cult Med Psychiatry12: 429–458.
StraussR.P. (1981). Surgery, activism, and aesthetics: a sociological perspective on the treatment of facial disfigurement. Psychological aspects of facial form. In: LuckerG.W., RibbensK.A., McNamaraJ.A., eds. Monograph No. 11, Craniofacial Growth Series, Center for Human Growth and Development.Ann Arbor: University of Michican.
21.
WhitingJ. (1977). Infanticide. Society for Cross-Cultural Research Newsletter, No. 5 (September).Laboratory of Human Development, Harvard University, Graduate School of Education.
22.
National Center for Health Statistics. (1990). Health in the United States, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
23.
PaulB.D. (1955). Introduction: understanding the community. In: PaulB.D., ed. Health, culture and community: case studies of public reactions to health programs.New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1–11.
