Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (; 11 May 1752 – 22 January 1840) was a German medical doctor, naturalist, physiologist, and anthropologist. He is considered to be a main founder of zoology and anthropology as comparative, scientific disciplines.Ilse Jahn, Rolf Löther, Konrad Senglaub (Pub.): Geschichte der Biologie. Jena 1985, p. 637. He has been called the "founder of racial classifications".
He was one of the first to explore the study of the human being as an aspect of natural history. His teachings in comparative anatomy were applied to his classification of human races, of which he claimed there were five: Caucasian, Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian, and American. He was a member of what modern historians call the Göttingen school of history.
He is considered a pivotal figure in the development of physical anthropology. Blumenbach's peers considered him one of the great theorists of his day, and he was a mentor or influence on many of the next generation of German biologists, including Alexander von Humboldt.Watson, Peter. The German Genius. New York: Harper, 2010. p. 81.
Early life and education Blumenbach was born at his family house in Gotha. His father was Heinrich Blumenbach, a local school headmaster; his mother was Charlotte Eleonore Hedwig Buddeus. He was born into a well-connected family of academics.
Blumenbach was educated at the Illustrious Gymnasium in Gotha before studying medicine, first at Jena and then at Göttingen. He was recognized as a prodigy by the age sixteen in 1768. He graduated from the latter in 1775 with his M.D. thesis De generis humani varietate nativa (On the Natural Variety of Mankind, University of Göttingen, which was first published in 1775, then re-issued with changes to the titlepage in 1776). It is considered one of the most influential works in the development of subsequent human race concepts.Biographical details are in Charles Coulston Gillispie, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 1970:203f s.v. "Johann Friederich Blumenbach". It contained the germ of the craniological research to which so many of his subsequent inquiries were directed.
Career Blumenbach was appointed extraordinary professor of medicine and inspector of the museum of natural history in Göttingen in 1776 and ordinary professor in 1778. His contributions soon began to enrich the pages of the Medicinische Bibliothek, of which he was editor from 1780 to 1794, with various contributions on medicine, physiology, and anatomy. In physiology, he was of the school of Albrecht von Haller, and was in the habit of illustrating his theory by a careful comparison of the animal functions of man with those of other animals. Following Georges Cuvier's identification, Blumenbach gave the woolly mammoth its first scientific name, Elephas primigenius (first-born elephant), in 1799.
His reputation was much extended by the publication of his Institutiones Physiologicae (1787), a condensed, well-arranged view of the animal functions, expounded without discussion of minute anatomical details. Between its first publication and 1821, it went through many editions in Germany, where it was the general textbook of the science of physiology. It was translated into English in America by Charles Caldwell (Philadelphia 1798), and in London by John Elliotson (1807).
He was perhaps still more extensively known by his Handbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie ("Handbook of comparative anatomy"), which passed through numerous German editions from its appearance in 1805 to 1824. It was translated into English in 1809 by the surgeon William Lawrence, and again, with improvements and additions, by William Coulson in 1827. This manual, though slighter than the subsequent works of Cuvier, Carus, and others, and not to be compared with such later expositions as that of Gegenbaur, was long esteemed for the accuracy of the author's own observations, and his just appreciation of the labors of his predecessors. Although the greatest part of Blumenbach's life was passed at Göttingen, in 1789 he visited Switzerland, and gave a curious medical topography of that country in the Bibliothek. He travelled to England in 1788 and 1792. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London in 1793 and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1794. In 1798, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He became a correspondent, living abroad, of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands in 1808. This was changed to associated member in 1827. He was then appointed secretary to the Royal Society of Sciences in 1812, elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1813, appointed physician to the royal family in Hanover () by the prince regent in 1816, made a knight-commander of the Guelphic Order in 1821, and elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1831. In celebration of his doctoral jubilee (1825), traveling scholarships were founded to assist talented young physicians and naturalists. He retired in 1835. Blumenbach died in 1840 in Göttingen, where he is buried in the Albani cemetery.
Racial anthropology
Blumenbach explored alleged racial differences in humans mainly by comparing skull anatomy and skin color. His work included a description of sixty human crania (skulls) published originally in fascicules as Decas craniorum (Göttingen, 1790–1828). This was a founding work for other scientists in the field of craniometry. He established a five-part naming system in 1795 to describe what he called generis humani varietates quinae principes, species vero unica (five principal varieties of humankind, but one species). In his view, humans could be divided into varieties (only in his later work he adopted the term "races", which had been introduced by others) but he was aware that a clear separation was difficult:
Blumenbach's classification of the single human species into five varieties (later called "races") (1793/1795): the Caucasian or white race. Blumenbach was the first to use this term for Europeans, but the term would later be reinterpreted to also include Middle Easterners and South Asians. the Mongolian or yellow race, including all East Asians. the Malayan or brown race, including Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders. the Ethiopian or black race, including all sub-Saharan Africans. the American or red race, including all Native Americans.
Blumenbach assumed that all morphological differences between the varieties were induced by the climate and the way of living and he emphasized that the differences in morphology were so small, gradual and transiently connected that it was not possible to separate these varieties clearly.Rupke, Nicolaas and Lauer, Gerhard (Editors) (2019) Johann Friedrich Blumenbach - Race and Natural History, 1750–1850 Routledge, London, UK and New York, USA He also noted that skin color was unsuitable for distinguishing varieties. Although Blumenbach did not propose any hierarchy among the five varieties, he placed the Caucasian form in the center of his description as being the most "primitive" or "primeval" one from which the other forms "degenerated". In the 18th century, however, these terms did not have the negative connotations they possess today. At the time, "primitive" or "primeval" described the ancestral form, while "degeneration" was understood to be the process of change leading to a variety adapted to a new environment by being exposed to a different climate and diet.Rupke, Nicolaas and Lauer, Gerhard (Editors) (2019) Johann Friedrich Blumenbach - Race and Natural History, 1750–1850 Routledge, London, UK and New York, USA Hence, he argued that physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., depended on geography, diet, and mannerism. Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that "individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from other Africans as from Europeans".Rupke, Nicolaas and Lauer, Gerhard (Editors) (2019) Johann Friedrich Blumenbach - Race and Natural History, 1750–1850 Routledge, London, UK and New York, USA
Like other monogenists such as Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Blumenbach held to the "degenerative hypothesis" of racial origins. Blumenbach claimed that Adam and Eve were Caucasian inhabitants of Asia,Human Evolution: a guide to the debates, Brian Regal, page 72 also see The Institutions of physiology, 1817, Blumenbach, John Elliotson and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factors such as the sun and poor diet. Thus, he claimed, African pigmentation arose as a result of the heat of the tropical sun, while the cold wind caused the tawny colour of the Inuit, and the Chinese were fair skinned compared to the other Asian people because they kept mostly in towns protected from environmental factors. He believed that the degeneration could be reversed in a proper environmental control and that all contemporary forms of man could revert to the original Caucasian race.
Moreover, he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind "concerning healthy faculties of understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities":Jack Hitt, "Mighty White of You: Racial Preferences Color America's Oldest Skulls and Bones," Harper's, July 2005, pp. 39–55
He did not consider his "degenerative hypothesis" as racist and sharply criticized Christoph Meiners, an early practitioner of scientific racialism, as well as Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, who concluded from autopsies that Africans were an inferior race. Blumenbach wrote three other essays stating non-white peoples were capable of excelling in arts and sciences in reaction against racialists of his time.Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze Race and the enlightenment: a reader, Blackwell (1997) p. 79 At his time, Blumenbach was perceived as anti-racist and he strongly opposed the practice of slavery and the belief of the inherent savagery of the coloured races.Carter J. & Muir P. H. 1983. Printing and the Mind of Man. 2nd ed, Karl Pressler, Munchen, p132/3. Alexander von Humboldt wrote on his and Blumenbach's views:
However, selected parts of his views were later used by others to encourage scientific racism.Rupke, Nicolaas and Lauer, Gerhard (Editors) (2019) Johann Friedrich Blumenbach - Race and Natural History, 1750–1850 Routledge, London, UK and New York, USA
Other natural studies