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Historical Bibliography Updated: June 17, 2026

De generis humani varietate nativa.

Publication Details

Göttingen: A. Vandenhoeck, 1775 CE.

Blumenbach was the founder of anthropology. In this, his doctoral dissertation, he classified mankind into four races, based on selected combinations of head shape, skin color and hair form. In the second edition (1781) he found it necessary to expand this division into five races, but his famous terms “Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malayan” were not used until the third edition of 1795. English translation in Blumenbach, The anthropological treatises…, translated by T. Bendyshe, London, 1865.

Thematic Classifications

Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#156
Permanent Linkhttps://staging.historyofmedicine.com/entry/3169
Author Bio LinkWikipedia ↗
External URLde-generis-humani-varietate-nativa

Geographic Context

Publication place: Göttingen

Mentioned in annotation: London