BLUMENBACH, JOHANN FRIEDRICH German physiologist and anthropologist, was born at Gotha on May 1, 1752. After studying medicine at Jena, he graduated doctor at Gottingen in 1775, and was appointed extraordinary professor of medicine in 1776 and ordinary professor in 1778. He died at GOttingen on Jan. 22, 184o. He was the author of Institutiones Physiologicae (1787), and of a Handbuch der ver gleichenden Anatomie (18o4), but he is best known for his work in connection with anthropology, of which science he has justly been called the founder. He was the first to show the value of comparative anatomy in the study of man's history, and his craniometrical researches justified his division of the human race into several great varieties or families, of which he enumerated five—the Caucasian or white, the Mongolian or yellow, the Malayan or brown, the Negro or black, and the American or red. His most important anthropological work was his description of 6o human crania published originally in fasciculi under the title Collectionis suae craniorum diversarum gentium illustratae de cades (Gottingen, no-1828).