Bidspirit | аукционный дом F. Tiedemann, Das Hirn des | 27/7/2023 The Bidder

F. Tiedemann, Das Hirn des Negers mit dem des Europaers und Orang-Outangs verglichen, illust., 1837, in German. - Friedrich Tiedemann, Das Hirn des Negers mit dem des Europaers und Orang-Outangs verglichen, litho illust., 1837, in German. One of the first books against racism The Negro's Brain Compared With The European And Orang-Outang Heidelberg, Karl Winter 1837. [2 advert.], VI, [2], 84pp. With 6 lithograph plates (somewhat smaller in size). First edition thus. Uncut copy Contemporary grey boards, size: 32 x 24 cm. Condition: Cover worn, rubbed, damped near spine; spine damaged; damping to left corner to top, pages browned and brown stained. Weight: 440 gr. Originally published in English in the Philosophical Transactions' of the Royal Society in London in 1836 under the title On the brain of the negro, compared with that of the European and the Orang-Outang'. Friedrich Tiedemann was professor in Landshut and Heidelberg and one of the greatest anatomists and zoologists of his time. In his preface to this volume he writes that his research was provoked by the discussions in the English parliament about the slave-trade and the emancipation of the blacks. The object of his investigations was, in his own words, to assay the almost generally accepted theory that negroes are a human race . much lower than other races, closely related to monkeys'. Tiedemann investigated the brains and crania of black Africans, other human races and orang-outangs in anatomical collections in Europe. The results of his investigations surprised his contemporaries: even though the crania of black Africans were indeed smaller than those of Europeans, their brains were as large and as heavy. Tiedemann concluded that blacks indeed were as capable as Europeans. Once he had concluded no essential differences in the structure of the brain, he investigates whether there are differences in the capabilities' of the soul ( Seelen-Fahigkeiten'). He concluded that, despite the unfavourable conditions under which many blacks had to live, their intellectual capabilities were equally developped. In the last chapter Tiedemann goes beyond the limits of physical anthropology - his book was one of the earliest works in that field - and investigates the reasons for prevailing unfavourable opinions about the intellectual faculties of blacks. He concluded that this was fully due to the slave trade and to the inhuman and cruel treatment of the slaves in America. He then proves that blacks indeed were able to great intellectual performances: he gives examples of moral and intellectual achievements of African blacks in the use of natural resources, their institutions, languages, arts and crafts, etc. and he proves that the disregard for the social and religious life of Africans is fully unjustified. He ends with examples of people of black descent who have distinguished themselves in the arts and sciences: Eliza Capitein, Benjamin Banneker, Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho, Juan Latino, and many others. Friedrich Tiedemann (23 August 1781 – 22 January 1861) was a German anatomist and physiologist. He was an expert on the anatomy of the brain. Rare work by the Heidelberg professor of zoology, anatomy and physiology. ”From the weighing and measurements of the negro brains and from numerous measurements of the skull, Tiedemann drew the conclusion that, although the majority of the negro brains and skulls are smaller than those of the Caucasians, they are just as large and heavy as those of the Caucasians. Combining this with the proof, through a rich literary research, that there is no area of mental activity in which negroes have not distinguished themselves, he came to the conclusion that nature in the disposition and formation of the brain has no original and insurmountable limit drawn between the Caucasian and the Negro, which necessarily makes the former the master of the latter” (Hirsch). -. * Tiedemann spent most of his life as professor of anatomy and physiology at Heidelberg University, a position to which he was appointed in 1816, after having filled the chair of anatomy and zoology for ten years at Landshut, and died at Munich.[2] He was elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1827. In 1836, he was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.