Louis Bolk

"Bolk" redirects here. For other uses, see Bölk and Bolks.

Lodewijk 'Louis' Bolk (10 December 1866, Overschie – 17 June 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 by its (proportionally) big head, lack of coordination, and helplessness. Furthermore, this "prematuration" is specifically human.

Louis Bolk.

Gavin de Beer and Stephen Jay Gould wrote about him and further developed this theory of neoteny in humans.^[2]

Also Jacques Lacan took Bolk's fetalization theory into account in order to introduce his own thesis on the mirror stage.^{[citation needed]}

Bolk wrote in Origin of Racial Characteristics in Man, “White skin...started from an ancestor with a black skin, in whose offspring hair and iris color were suppressed more and more.”^[3]

Hand measurements based on the Louis Bolk's fetalization 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. PMID 8231987.
2. Gould, S. J. (1977). Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press. Chapter 10: Retardation and Neoteny in Human Evolution. The Fetalization Theory of Louis Bolk, pages 356–362. ISBN 978-0-674-63940-9.)
3. 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.