Blumenbach alone, apparently, took the trouble to investigate the origin of Wild Peter, and in the article he wrote on the subject disposed for all time of the belief in the existence of “natural man.” He pointed out that when Peter was first met he wore fastened round his neck the torn fragments of a shirt, and that the whiteness of his thighs, as compared with the brown of his legs, showed that he had been wearing breeches and no stockings. He finally proved that Peter was the dumb child of a widower, who had been thrust out of his home by a new step-mother.[[18]]
[18]. Cunningham, pp. 24-5.
Chapter II.
THE SYSTEMATISERS OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Hitherto we have been dealing with the great pioneers in Anthropology, those who laid the foundations, brought order out of chaos, and suggested the outlines of future work. Henceforward Anthropology may claim the name of a science, and the work developed on definite lines. It will be more convenient to treat these separately, abandoning a strict chronological method.
The first branch to attract workers was Somatology, the physical aspect of man, of which we have already noted the inception: not until the nineteenth century can Archæology, or Prehistoric Anthropology, be said to have developed into a science; while the scientific study of Ethnology, or Cultural Anthropology, is barely half a century old.
Craniology.
Norma Verticalis of Blumenbach.
Somatology had already been foreshadowed by Vesalius, Spigel, and Linnæus; but Blumenbach was the first to strike its keynote by recording the shape of the skull and of the face. He was the fortunate possessor of a large number of skulls—large, that is, for his time, and he published a description of them (1790-1820), Decas collectionis suae craniorum diversarum gentium illustrata, with 70 plates. He noted particularly the norma verticalis—i.e., the shape of the skull as seen from above, distinguishing by its means three types—the square shape of the Mongols, the narrow or “pressed in from the sides” shape of the Negroes, and the intermediate form which he recognised in the “Caucasians.” He was the first to popularise craniology, and “it became the fashion to visit the Blumenbachian Museum, to have the differences which distinguish the different cranial types pointed out, and to indulge in sentimental rhapsodies upon the beauty and symmetry of the young female Georgian skull, which was considered to represent the highest type of all.”[[19]] But Blumenbach does not seem to have taken advantage of his own discoveries. In choosing the norma verticalis as a racial criterion he made a valuable contribution to science, but he did not reproduce his normæ in his plates, nor did he base his classification on them. Indeed, his typical Caucasian skull is really squarer than his typical Mongolian.