Topinard's “General Anthropology”

Abstract

THE study of anthropology has been pursued, especially of late years, with great zeal by many leading savants, both in the Old and New World, and many valuable contributions to ourknowledge have been made in all departments included under its extensive range. This is more particularly the case with respect to that part of the subject which deals with the anatomical characters of the human body. Until this branch of anthropology was so vigorously and successfully studied by Broca, complete ignorance of many fundamental questions prevailed. The direct result of the work of that great anthropologist was immense, while the indirect result due to the incentive which he gave to the study of anthropology generally cannot be over-estimated, but may be inferred from the numerous societies devoted to its study which have rapidly sprung up in various countries. Broca must he considered the great pioneer of modern anthropology, but his untimely death left his work by no means complete, and many extensive fields remained almost untrodden by the foot of the investigator. By the accumulated observations of his followers these deficiencies have been in great part made good, and the time had arrived when it was possible to form generalisations from sufficient data, and when a comprehensive work embracing the whole subject was urgently needed. For the production of such a work no one more highly fitted could be found than Prof. Paul Topinard, trained at the feet of the great master himself, possessed of an extensive knowledge of his subject, and intimately acquainted, by personal visits to the chief centres of anthropological research, with the methods employed by his contemporaries.

Éléements d'Anthropologie générale.

Par le Dr. Paul Topinard. (Paris: A. Delahaye et É. Lecrosnier, 1885.)