[Eugenics and public health: legal sterilization of mentally ill in the Vaud canton (Switzerland)].

In 1928 the canton of Vaud (Switzerland) voted a bill which legalized eugenics sterilization. The sterilization of the mentally ill was a public-health measure among others. It fitted in a wide variety of policies whose aims were to increase the physical and psychical well-being of the population. Vaud eugenics was progressive, reformist and non-partisan. This paper examines the intellectual, social and political conditions of the 1928 bill.