Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (May 11, 1752 – January 22, 1840) was a German physician, physiologist and anthropologist, one of the first to explore the study of mankind as an aspect of natural history, whose teachings in comparative anatomy were applied to classification of human races, of which he determined five. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach was born at Gotha, studied medicine at Jena, and graduated in 1775 with his MD thesis De generis humani va... more

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (May 11, 1752 – January 22, 1840) was a German physician, physiologist and anthropologist, one of the first to explore the study of mankind as an aspect of natural history, whose teachings in comparative anatomy were applied to classification of human races, of which he determined five. 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, first published in 1776), 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). In 1813, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Blumenbach died in Göttingen in... less