Jeremy Schneider (Cornell University), “Blumenbach’s Fossils: Teaching Extinction in 18th-Century Gottingen” (History of Science and Medicine)

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1750-1842) was professor of medicine at Göttingen. He is well-known in the history of science for his comparative study of skulls and the idea that human races comprise a single species. But what of his other pursuits? Focusing on the period 1773 to 1797, this talk sketches Blumenbach’s research into the fossilized shells of mollusks, examining how he employed these objects to teach students about extinction in his classes. I will suggest connections between his teaching activities and anthropological work, linking the university’s ever-growing collection of ethnographic objects to Blumenbach’s skepticism that global exploration could ever yield the “living originals” for extinct fossil forms.