The German eugenicist Alfred Ploetz introduced the term Rassenhygiene in his "Racial hygiene basics" (Grundlinien einer Rassenhygiene) in 1895. He discussed the importance of avoiding "counterselective forces" such as war, inbreeding, free healthcare for the poor, alcohol and venereal disease.[1] In its earliest incarnation it was more concerned by the declining birthrate of the German state and the increasing number of mentally-ill and disabled people in state-run institutions (and their costs to the state) than it was by the "Jewish question" and the "degeneration of the Nordic race" (Entnordung) which would come to dominate its philosophy in Germany from the 1920s to the Second World War.