James Cowles Prichard's Anthropology.Remaking the Science of Man in Early Nineteenth Century Britain.(Clio Medica/The Wellcome Institute Series in the History of Medicine 52)
Publisher: Rodopi Bv Editions
Published: January 1999
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 314
ISBN-13: 9789042004047
Subjects: History of medicine; Sociology, Social Studies; General; History; History: World
Description: The Bristol doctor James Cowles Prichard (1786-1848) has enjoyed a glowing reputation. Late Victorians regarded him as the founder of British anthropology and, in the twentieth century, he has been considered as a precursor of Darwin. Nowadays his name is cited mainly in context of inquiries into the rise of racial theories. Prichard's own theoretical goal was simple: the son of Quaker parents, he attempted to establish that the Bible provided a correct account of the earliest history of humankind; above all it was his aim to prove once and for all the doctrine of monogenesis: the unitary origins of mankind. He single-handedly charted the waters of the pre-Victorian human sciences. Philology, anthropology, mythology, Biblical criticism, the philosophy of the human mind, comparative anatomy, physiology, and practical medicine - Prichard mastered subjects so diverse that his learning may be called truly universal. His views have often been misrepresented, however, and his oppos.