Blumenbach
| Johann Friedrich Blumenbach | |
|---|---|
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|
| Born |
11 May 1752 Gotha |
| Died | 22 January 1840 (aged 87) Göttingen |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Physiology |
| Alma mater |
University of Jena University of Göttingen |
| Doctoral advisor | Christian Wilhelm Büttner |
| Other academic advisors |
Ernst Gottfried Baldinger Christian Gottlob Heyne |
| Doctoral students |
Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link Friedrich Stromeyer Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold |
| Known for | comparative anatomy |
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (11 May 1752 – 22 January 1840) was a German physician, naturalist, physiologist, and anthropologist. He was one of the first to explore the study of mankind as an aspect of natural history. His teachings in comparative anatomy were applied to his classification of human races, of which he determined there were five. He was a member of the Göttingen School of History.
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.
He studied medicine 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 title-page in 1776). It is considered one of the most influential works in the development of subsequent concepts of "human races." It contained the germ of the craniological research to which so many of his subsequent inquiries were directed.
He 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 Baron Cuvier's identification, Blumenbach gave the woolly mammoth its first scientific name, Elephas primigenius (first-born elephant), in 1799.
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