Iwan Bloch

Iwan Bloch (also known as Ivan Bloch) (April 8, 1872 – November 21, 1922) was a German dermatologist and psychiatrist.

Born in Delmenhorst, Grand Ducal Oldenburg, Germany, he is often called the first sexologist. He discovered the Marquis de Sade's manuscript of The 120 Days of Sodom, which had been believed to be lost, and published it under the pseudonym Eugène Dühren in 1904. In 1899 he had published Marquis de Sade: his life and works. under the same pseudonym.

Together with Magnus Hirschfeld and Albert Eulenburg, Bloch proposed the new concept of a science of sexuality: Sexualwissenschaft or sexology. In 1906 he wrote in German the book Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit in seinen Beziehungen zur modernen Kultur which was translated as The Sexual Life of our Time in its Relations to Modern Civilization, a complete encyclopedia of the sexual sciences in their relation to modern civilization.

According to Sigmund Freud, Bloch's studies were instrumental in the development of the anthropological approach to the theory of sexuality. Before Bloch, homosexuality was analyzed using a pathological approach.

Iwan Bloch began the publication of his "Handbuch der gesamten Sexualwissenschaft in Einzeldarstellungen" (Handbook of Sexology in its Entirety Presented in Separate Studies). Three volumes appeared, the project was aborted because of Bloch's untimely death at age 50.

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