Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (May 11, 1752 – January 22, 1840) was a German physiologist and physical anthropologist, one of the founders of scientific racism theories.

Biography

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach was born at Gotha, studied medicine at Jena, and graduated in 1775 with his MD thesis De generis humani varietate nativa (On the Natural Varieties of Mankind, University of Göttingen), which is considered one of the most influential works in the development of subsequent concepts of "human races."

He was appointed extraordinary professor of medicine in Göttingen in 1776 and ordinary professor in 1778. His later works included Institutiones Physiologicae (1787), and Handbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie (1804). Blumenbach died in Göttingen in 1840.

Blumenbach's racial classification system

Blumenbach's five races.

On the basis of his craniometrical research (analysis of human skulls), Blumenbach divided the human species into five races: the Caucasian race or white race; the Mongolian or yellow race; the Malayan or brown race; the Negro, Ethiopian, or black race; and the American or red race.

His Mongolian race included all East Asians and some Central Asians. Blumenbach excluded Southeast Asian islands and Pacific Islanders from his definition as he considered them to be part of the Malay race; and American Indians as he considered them to be part of the American race. He thought they were not inferior to the Caucasian race, and were potentially good members of society. Ethiopians included the peoples of most of Africa.

Blumenbach argued that physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., were correlated with group character and aptitude. Craniometry and phrenology would attempt to make physical appearance correspond with racial categories. The fairness and relatively high brows of Caucasians were held to be apt physical expressions of a loftier mentality and a more generous spirit. The epicanthic folds around the eyes of Mongolians and their slightly sallow outer epidermal layer bespoke their supposedly crafty, literal-minded nature.

The dark skin and relatively sloping craniums of Ethiopians were taken as wholesale proof of a closer genetic proximity to the monkeys, despite the fact that the skin of chimpanzees and gorillas beneath the hair is whiter than the average Caucasian skin, and that orangutans and some monkey species have foreheads fully as vertical as the typical Englishman or German.

Blumenbach's work included his description of sixty humans crania (skulls) published originally in fasciculi as Collectionis suae craniorum diversarum gentium illustratae decades (Göttingen, 1790-1828). This was a founding work of craniometry.

Later in life, Blumenbach encountered in Switzerland "eine zum Verlieben schönen Négresse" ('a negro woman so beautiful to fall in love with'). Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that 'individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from other individual Africans as Europeans differ from Europeans'. Furthermore he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind 'concerning healthy faculties of understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities'.

These later ideas were far less influential than his earlier assertions with regard to the perceived relative qualities of the different races.

See also

• Scientific racism
• Craniometry