About the Book This book, The Natural History of Man, is a pre-Darwinian text that attempts to categorize all known races in the world in order to create an organized account based on the varying characteristics of the races.
About the Author James Cowles Prichard, FRS (1786-1848) was a British physician and ethnologist with broad interests in physical anthropology and psychiatry. His influential Researches into the Physical History of Mankind touched upon the subject of evolution. From 1845, Prichard served as a Medical Commissioner in Lunacy. He also introduced the term "senile dementia".
Preface THE present edition of the "Natural History of Man" contains the whole of the work published by Dr. Prichard in the year 1848, together with much additional information obtained subsequently. The ruder divisions of the Human Race have, within these few years, received so much attention, the courage of scientific travellers, the zeal of missionaries, the enterprise of traders, and the intelligent labours of government functionaries from Europe and America, have so largely contributed to our knowledge of their habits, creeds, and physiology,-that, in order to keep the book within a convenient size, it has been found necessary to take but sparingly from the sources thus placed at our disposal. In the selection made, the Editor has been guided chiefly by a wish to bring forward facts more immediately bearing upon the views which the Author himself took of his work, and in subservience to this, to record notices of any portions of the human family but little known at the time when he wrote, selecting preferably from publications not likely to be extensively diffused, such as tracts printed at remote colonies, reports of missionaries, or bulky official papers.
Book's Contents and Sample Pages
