The Anatomy of Difference: Race and Sex in Eighteenth-Century Science

IN THE 178os DUKE FREDERICK II of Hessen-Kassel settled a colony of Africans at Wilhelmshohe (near Kassel), high above the Eder river, in order to study their customs and anatomy. Originally intended to house Chinese, the colony was built with pagodas and oriental gardens. Since Chinese were either too expensive or simply not available, the colony was settled with Africans. The medical doctor in charge of the colony, Ernst Baldinger, noted that the Africans settled there did not flourish; most died of tuberculosis or committed suicide.' Their bodies were turned over to Germany's leading anatomist: Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring3 From his dissections of several Negro bodies of both sexes (one woman, one child, and at least two men), along with his earlier observations of them at the public baths, Soemmerring prepared his 1784 Uber die korperliche Verschiedenheit des Mohren vom Europaer (Concerning the physical difference between the Moor and the European) -a book that served as a basic text on the African physique until well into the nineteenth century.