Renato Kehl

Renato Ferraz Kehl was a Brazilian pharmacist, physician, writer, and the primary proponent of the eugenics movement in Brazil during the early 20th century. He graduated from the School of Pharmacy of São Paulo and later obtained his doctoral degree from the Rio de Janeiro School of Medicine in 1915. His early professional career developed within the National Department of Public Health (DNSP), where he engaged in rural sanitation campaigns and sanitary education initiatives alongside public health figures like his father-in-law, Belisário Penna. In the late 1920s, he also transitioned into the private pharmaceutical sector, serving as a corporate director for Bayer in Brazil.Kehl's historical legacy is centered on his extensive ideological campaign to institutionalize racial and genetic engineering as public policy. In 1918, he founded the Eugenics Society of São Paulo, organizing national and regional conferences to propagate theories aimed at altering the demographic and racial composition of the Brazilian population. Over four decades, he published approximately thirty books, including Lições de Eugenia (1929) and Sexo e civilização (1933). His written work and institutional advocacy grew progressively radical, shifting toward "negative eugenics," which formally campaigned for scientific racism, targeted human sterilization, and the legal restriction of specific ethnic groups.