Louis Bolk

Lodewijk 'Louis' Bolk (December 10, 1866, Overschie – June 17, 1930, Amsterdam) was a Dutch anatomist who created the fetalization theory about the human body.[1] It states that when a human being is born, it is still a fetus, as can be seen if one pays attention to its (proportionally) big head, to its uncoordinated motility or to its absolute helplessness, for instance. Furthermore, this "prematuration" is specifically human.

Louis Bolk.

Gavin de Beer and Stephen Jay Gould wrote about him and further developed this theory, which is sometimes called neoteny.

Also Jacques Lacan took Bolk's fetalization theory into account in order to introduce his own thesis on the mirror stage.

Bolk wrote in Origin of Racial Characteristics[2] in Man, “White skin...started from an ancestor with a black skin, in whose offspring hair and iris color were suppressed more and more.”

Hand Meassurements based on the Louis Bolk's fetallization theory

References
  1. Verhulst, J. (1993). "Louis Bolk revisited II—Retardation, hypermorphosis and body proportions of humans". Medical Hypotheses. 41 (2): 100–114. doi:10.1016/0306-9877(93)90054-T.
  2. Bolk, L. (1929). "Origin of racial characteristics in man". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 13 (1): 1–28. doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330130123. ISSN 1096-8644.


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