Louis Bolk
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.
![](../I/LBolk.jpg.webp)
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.
Bolk wrote in Origin of Racial Characteristics[3] in Man, “White skin...started from an ancestor with a black skin, in whose offspring hair and iris color were suppressed more and more.”
![](../I/Louis_Bolk's_Hand_Meassurements.jpg.webp)
References
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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.