In the eighteenth century, physicians claimed the management of difficult labors, in which the fetus got stuck in the pelvic canal, as a field of expertise. They had an array of tools, such as forceps, at their disposal to facilitate delivery.1 Into the following century, questions regarding whether and how racial differences manifested physically were debated by scholars conducting anatomical studies of reproduction.2 Collections of instruments and preserved bodies were a vital resource for the production of knowledge and authority in the nineteenth century.3
The time at my disposal did not admit of my visiting the anatomical museum at Upsala [sic], which contains some few race-skulls and has, moreover, been recently enriched by the extensive collection of pelves of various nations, collected by the brother of Professor Anders Retzius, Dr. Magnus Retzius, Professor of Obstetrics at his [Anders Retziusâs] Caroline Institute in Stockholm.7
Magnus Retzius had sold the collection to the medical faculty at Uppsala University in 1862, but he had assembled it in Stockholm over the previous decades. In the inventory accompanying the sales contract, the pelves mentioned by Higgins were listed under the heading ârace pelves.â8 The collection also contained osteological preparations of pelvesâthat is, preserved body partsâlabeled with conditions such as rickets. Fetal crania, casts of pelves in plaster and papier mâché, models of the pregnant body, and obstetrical instruments were also part of the collection. All the pelves were remnants of womenâs bodies which had been skeletonized, mounted, written on, and labeled: practices which made them into collection objects.
After the sale, the Uppsala collection was housed in the museum at the Department of Anatomy for many years. In 1903 the pelves, along with the obstetrical instruments, were moved to the Uppsala University Hospital, and over time items were added, removed, and destroyed. In the mid-1990s and in 2006 the pelves and instruments were moved to the Museum of Medical History in Uppsala, where they remain today.9
This chapter explores this hitherto unexamined obstetric collection in the context of Swedish nationalism in the first half of the nineteenth century. By investigating the remaining pelvis preparations in relation to archival sources and scientific publications, the aim is to uncover how Magnus Retziusâs collection was used as evidence in the Swedish nation-building project. In particular, I will demonstrate that tension between interpretations of the pelvis and the skull had a bearing on ideas about national identity in Sweden. Moreover, I will
The formation of skull collections internationally and in Sweden has been the subject of historically oriented studies, with a focus on the 1860s onward, whereas the existence and uses of racialized pelvis collections have barely been addressed.10 Previous scholarship, most dating from the 1980s and 1990s, has shed light on only a few collections containing pelves categorized according to racial groupings, largely in passing, with the focus on how womenâs genitals were described and how hierarchies were thereby produced. It has been shown that women of African descent were subjected to particularly close scrutiny.11 More recently, it has been demonstrated that preparations of womenâs pelves have been used as means of constructing national identity and âthe indigenous.â12 This strain of research has outlined the potential of racialized pelvis collections as sources in the investigation of identity formation, and this study takes a similar approach.
In the first section of this chapter, the collectors, their scientific context, and the interplay between their collections are analyzed. The second section demonstrates that these collections were deeply intertwined with inquiries into prehistory within the spheres of Scandinavianism and antiquarianism, which in turn were linked to nationalism. The conclusion emphasizes that race and sex were constituted through Magnus Retziusâs collection in the context of the Swedish nation-building project of the first half of the nineteenth century, as a means to define the âSwedish people.â
1 The Collectors of Pelves and Skulls
Magnus and Anders Retzius were born in Lund, where their father, Anders Jahan Retzius, a student of Linnaeus, was professor of natural history. After completing his medical studies, Magnus started a career as a military physician in 1815. In 1819 he assumed the position of assistant physician at the Pro Patria
When Magnus started working at the Pro Patria Lying-In Hospital, there were small-scale teaching and research collections of anatomical and zoological preparations, as well as surgical instruments, at the universities in Lund and Uppsala, and at the Karolinska Institute.14 It was not uncommon for physicians to possess collections of their own. In the first half of the nineteenth century, naturalists, who were also often physicians, collected, described, and classified the world through its contents.15 Dead animals, plants, and rocks from all over the globe found their way into the naturalistsâ private collections, acquired on their own travels or by their associates.16 In line with the tradition of natural history, Magnusâs collection was privately owned, but as I will show, it was also a product of his ties to the Karolinska Institute.
During the nineteenth century, as medicine became more specialized, existing collections were reorganized and extended to serve emerging fields of research and education.17 At the Karolinska Institute this process was headed by Anders Retzius, who became an increasingly influential professor and expanded his employerâs collections from the 1830s onward. He is particularly known for assembling the collection of human skulls, but the museum also contained many dry and wet preparations of human and animal remains.18 Anders also established an index to categorize human variation, in terms of cranial form, in the early 1840s.19 The Retzius brothers represented different models of ownership relative to these collections, yet their collecting activities and scholarly works were closely enmeshed.
Within nations which live in the natural state, and within those which otherwise find themselves at a lesser stage of cultural development, the individual differences appear less. On the other hand, greater individual differences also emerge in the cranial form to the same extent that higher and broader education has appeared. One should therefore preferentially extract the material for the investigations from the actual people, less from the higher classes, and more from the distant countryside than in the cities.22
Winterbottom affirms, that negresses, who generally have small and narrow pelves, give birth to small children, while mestizos (a mix of Europeans and colored), who live in the same areas as the negroes, have wide pelves and give birth to big, plump children.24
the more a nationâs particular pelvic form approaches the animalistic form, the more unrefined and crude such a pelvis appears, and the less developed are the internal pelvic planes, but yet the fetus passes more easily through them, and the less painful and drawn-out is the labor, such as for example for the women of the Bushmen and the primeval Negroes.25
Magnus conceptualized giving birth as a mechanical process, which he also related to race. In his dissertation he wrote about âlabor-mechanics,â describing how the obstetrician could intervene when a fetus could not pass through the pelvic channel.27 The core of Magnusâs dissertation discusses how to determine that a womanâs pelvis is too narrow for the fetus to pass through and how to make suitable interventions. Problematic childbirths were thus defined relative to the womanâs bodily constitution; the pathology was thought to be situated in her and, implicitly, in her race.
Like skulls, pelves were examined by taking measurementsâa practice known as pelvimetry.28 Specific instruments, craniometers and pelvimeters respectively, were used for this purpose.29 The first pelvimeters seem to have been constructed in France in the 1770s by Jean-Louis Baudelocque and were used for determining whether a womanâs pelvic channel was wide enough for a fetus to pass through.30 There were six of these instruments in Magnusâs collection.31 As shown in previous research, pelvimeters were also used to co-construct race and pathology. By establishing the common form and width of a certain group, potential problems such as âtoo-narrow pelvesâ could be diagnosed, which in turn could serve as a basis for decision-making about interventions when the fetus could not pass through the pelvic channel.32 In Magnusâs collection, ideas about race and pathology were also present; some pelves were described according to racial categories and others in terms of pathological conditions. Magnus and several of his international colleagues aspired to
Wellenberghâs pelvimeter from Magnus Retziusâs collection (the middle brace missing). UMM 0247, Museum of Medical History, Uppsala.
2 The Need for Collections
In previous centuries human bodies had been understood as directly linked to social organization, faith, and surrounding climate.34 Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, there were overlapping and conflicting understandings of human origins and variations, as well as what these meant for peopleâs place in society. Monogenesis, the theory that all humans had the same origin, competed with polygenesis, which held that there were different species of humans with distinct geographical origins.35
Pelvimeters were used to measure womenâs pelves internally and externally. An instructional figure from Wellenbergh, Abhandlung über einen Pelvimeter, Tab. III. The Internet Archive.
The study of human variation through the comparison of anatomical specimens was practiced by several scholars, such as Georges Cuvier, professor of natural history in Paris. In the research literature, the case of Sara Baartman illustrates this practice. In 1815, Baartman, a Khoisan woman, died. Her body was examined by Cuvier, who described her as belonging to the âBushmen,â a group he considered to be the closest to animals. Parts of Baartmanâs body were prepared as anatomical specimens and integrated into the Museum of Natural History in Paris. It has been noted that in Cuvierâs report of his autopsy of Baartman, he compared her pelvis with those of other âracesâ kept at the museum. It is, however, not clear whether these pelves belonged to whole skeletons or were kept as a dedicated pelvis collection.37
Of all the parts of natural history, knowledge about the human family is the most uncharted. On the one hand, the differences between specific human races are so great that one is tempted to consider them as separate species of a family. On the other hand, no valid characteristics can be found that would justify such an assumption. Instead, the terms varieties of humankind or folk races have been articulated, but an assured notion
of how the word human race should be understood has however not been determined, and it is even less determined which these races are.39
This uncertainty fueled the need to assemble and expand collections. In Magnusâs hands, such collections also became evidence for demonstrating the origins of the âSwedish people.â
It is possible that Magnus began collecting pelves in the 1820sâat least those that he labeled according to pathologies, which appear to have been sourced mainly from autopsies he performed on women who died at Pro Patria Lying-In Hospital. For instance, in 1846 a patient perished in the aftermath of an embryotomy, and her pelvis was made into a preparation, as an example of a type of pelvis considered pathological because of its ânarrowness.â40
Twenty-one pelves were listed under the heading of ârace pelvesâ in the inventory of 1862, and these came from other sources. They were specified as âEskimo,â âSlavic,â âSamoyed,â âNegro,â âMulatto,â âAbyssinian,â âMongolian,â âJavan,â âArabian,â âfrom the Nicobar Islands,â âfrom Peru,â âfrom Mexico,â âNorwegian,â âFinnish,â âGreenlandic,â âLapp?,â and âBotocud.â41 The evidence of the specimens themselves, their labels, and the inventory of 1862 can be correlated to the collecting enterprise and scientific networks of Anders, whose skull-collecting activities began in the 1820s and intensified in the 1840s.42
Like the ârace skulls,â the ârace pelvesâ came from numerous contexts.43 While Anders published several articles on his theories of race in relation to the skull collection at the Karolinska Institute, documenting where and from whom the specimens had been procured, Magnus rarely made explicit statements about the provenance of his specimens in his publications. Yet names mentioned in Andersâs articles appear on labels in Magnusâs collection. For example, the pelvis âfrom Mexicoâ was probably sent by the Swedish-Norwegian consul in Montevideo, J. Tarras, who played an active role in describing peoples in South America.44 Swedish consuls abroad were central for facilitating contact with international colleagues and for the exchange of specimens. The Swedish corvettes and frigates that embarked on trade missions also had a diplomatic role
Magnus went abroad on study trips to the German lands, France, and England four times over the years, but never ventured beyond the borders of Europe.46 Consequently he was dependent on other means of obtaining specimens from distant lands. Collecting enterprises in general relied on available means of communication and networks for accessing and transporting objects from afar.47 Trade and nation-building projects were features of the colonial context in which pelves and skulls were acquired.48
3 Prehistory, Scandinavianism, and the Nation-Building Project
The specimens in the Retzius brothersâ collections related to how Sweden participated in world trade and politics in different ways, as well as being associated with the wider connections between borders and form in the sense of territory, epochs, and bones. The map of the world was being redrawn by European powers when Magnus and Anders started assembling their collections. The Napoleonic Wars reshaped alliances and borders, with major consequences for Sweden. In 1809 Sweden lost Finland to Russia. In 1814 it lost Eastern Prussia and entered a union with Norway. Finally, in 1818 it gained a new royal dynasty, headed by one of Napoleon Bonaparteâs former generals.49
In the following decades new collective identities were forged in response to these changes, which defined who belonged together, who did not, and in what ways.50 Many European states struggled with the formation of new identities in the political turmoil that followed the Napoleonic Wars, and in this context the construction of a shared past was central.51 When a new Swedish constitution was ratified after a coup dâétat in 1809, the nation was no longer equivalent
Professionals within the Swedish state gained influence and were involved in shaping the new identity of the nation, of which the construction and preservation of historical heritage was part.53 In the early and mid-nineteenth century, the discipline of archaeology emerged from antiquarianism and played a key role in nationalistic discourses. In 1811 the Geatish Society was founded in Stockholm by a group of friends. Part of the state administration of antiquities and history, these individuals were influential in shaping the new Swedish nationalism by investigating, and at the same time constructing, Swedenâs past. The term âGöthiskâ hinted at a group of people and emphasized a quintessential Swedishness.54
As the individual nations of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were reshaped and consolidated in the early nineteenth century, a sense of a shared identity called Scandinavianism was also promoted.55 In the previous century this academic movement had centered on professional collaborations, especially between scholars in Lund and Copenhagen. In the 1820s political tension limited contact, but when restrictions were lifted in the 1830s, several scholars on both sides romanticized the idea of a shared identity as âScandinavians.â This notion became politically prominent in the 1840s, when the desire to merge the Scandinavian countries into a single political entity was articulated in academic circles.56 The Retzius brothers largely conducted their inquiries into human variation within this context.
In July 1839 meetings of the Scandinavian naturalists were inaugurated in Gothenburg, Sweden. Based on German and British models, this would become a regular event throughout the century, held in different cities in the region.57 In this setting, the Danish professor of anatomy Ib Pedersen Ibsen became a supplier for the Retzius brothers. Several specimens found their way into the Stockholm collections through Ibsen.58
The mere specimens were not sufficient in themselves. Recording and organizing information about their provenance and related observations was also considered imperative.61 The names of the individuals who donated, exchanged, or sold a preparation to the collector were often written on the very bones of the pelves, as they were on skulls. The racial category to which the pelvis was assigned was also often inscribed on the surface and announced membership in a group, either by a racial designation or a geographical/national origin.
The colonial enterprises of European kingdoms, such as Denmark, had created opportunities for obtaining and transporting bodies and ethnographic materials from different parts of the world to collectors in Europe. Even though Sweden was not one of the major colonial powers, Swedish collectors still took part in this flow of goods. Moreover, Sweden had a long colonial history in the northern parts of the country, where the Sámi population (the so-called Lapps) in the Sápmi region (âLapponiaâ) was subjected to a colonial regime.62
It is likely that the question mark in âLapp pelvis?â in the inventory of 1862 indicates uncertainties about its provenance. For the Retzius brothers it was important to know whether a skull or a pelvis could be authenticated as having derived from a specific group of people. This concern was shared by other scholars interested in the reasons for human variation, such as the British skull collector Joseph Barnard Davis.63 The question mark probably signifies that
The pelvis preparations in the collection were often, like skulls, separated from the rest of the skeleton and a racial category, such as âNicobarian,â written on the bones. Through this practice, scholars produced the very same racial categories. Magnus Retzius bought this specimen from Ib Pedersen Ibsen around 1850. Object D35, UMM 408, Museum of Medical History, Uppsala. Photo: Helena Franzén.
A pelvis in Magnusâs collection was labeled as âFinnish,â and in the inventory of 1862 it was annotated as âgenuine Finnish.â65 This is a likely indication that the pelvis was considered to be representative for Finns. This pelvis was a gift from Evert Julius Bonsdorff, a professor of anatomy in Finland who had studied with Anders in Stockholm. Anders had received several crania deemed
Multiple factors had to be considered in the authentication of Sámi individuals. Anders stated that since they were buried in the same churchyards as Swedish and Finnish settlers, it could not be assumed that disinterred bodies belonged to one or the other group. Nevertheless, he asserted that several reliable individuals had supplied him with crania from the Sámi, which were acquired from contexts in which their origins were certain, such as forensic autopsies when the physician knew the ethnicity of the deceased person.67
The issue of authenticity and representativeness was entangled with antiquarianism, which, like natural history, was associated with categorizations of territory, epochs, and form. Enquiries into prehistory and concerns that specimens have âgenuineâ origins tapped into the ongoing Swedish nation-building project, along with ideas about a shared past, cultural customs, and language. Similar developments occurred in Britain, France, Germany, Finland, Norway, and Denmark.68
Many of Andersâs inquiries into racial categorization were closely connected to questions about European prehistory. According to his presentation in 1842, âthe European nations, due to emerging culture and lively trade [have] already been in quite close contact with each other for several centuries,â a situation that called for caution: âone has to make sure that the specimens used for examinations are of pure and unmixed stock.â69 Anders regretted, for example, that while it would have been easy to obtain specimens from the dissections halls in Copenhagen, it would not be possible to ascertain which group they belonged to, since people were too mobile in that area.70
One way to access bodies that could be securely attributed to a certain group was to unearth prehistoric burials. This practice represents a key intersection between early nineteenth-century inquiries into human variation and antiquarianism. Anders and Sven Nilsson, professor of zoology at Lund University, were prominent figures in this area, and they influenced each otherâs works. Nilsson published Den Skandinaviska Nordens Ur-InvÃ¥nare (1838â43), in which he presented a chronology of Swedenâs prehistory sorted into âages,â which in turn were defined by the material properties of unearthed artifacts.71
Like the Retzius brothers, Nilsson used the comparative method, for which collections of material objectsâexcavated artifacts and bodiesâwere imperative. For Nilsson, the locations of the finds were also vital, as they were thought to indicate which regions different âpeoplesâ had inhabited. Groups of people, territory, and epochs were thought to be interlocking. As highlighted in previous research, Nilsson was influenced by Cuvier, with whom he had studied; thus, sorting people and things into types was a given feature in his research.74 Several specimens from prehistoric burials were incorporated into the collection at the Karolinska Institute. For example, Sven Lovén had obtained a cranium from Norway in this way; he brought it back to Sweden and gifted it to the museum.75
4 The âSwedesâ and the âOthersâ
At the meeting of the Scandinavian naturalists in Copenhagen in 1847, Magnus presented his investigations into the form of female pelves from people inhabiting the Scandinavian peninsula, which he later published in a short article. Judging from the setting and the topic, this paper was heavily influenced by the current tides of Scandinavianism and nationalism. In his account, Magnus distinguished the following categories of pelvic forms: âGeatish,â âLapp,â and âFinnish.â This division was based on previous studies, which, he remarked, demonstrated distinctive differences between the cranial forms of these peoples.76 This declaration most likely hinted at his brotherâs influential publication âOm formen af Nordboarnes kranier.â In contrast to pelvis preparations implicitly categorized as âSwedish,â which he could easily access via the lying-in hospital, pelves attributed to other racial categories were fewer. Magnus shed
In the same vein as the abovementioned article, Magnus also produced Icones pelvium gentium Scandinavia.78 The nature of this work is not firmly established, and we do not know when, or whether, it was published. It was likely an atlas in which the forms of the âScandinavian pelvesâ were illustrated and probably produced in the late 1840s. Moreover, the overlaps between the contents of the collection, the article, and the atlas itself suggest that the illustrations were drawings based on specimens in the collection. The title accentuated that although Magnusâs collection contained pelves from farther away, the âScandinavian formsâ interested him the most, and his perceptions were entangled with those of his brother and Nilsson.
Magnus stated that Finland was not part of Scandinavia, but that many Finns lived within the northern peninsula, along with Sámi; thus it was of interest to identify them. He argued that the form of the âNorwegian pelvisâ was equivalent to âthe Geatish,â which in turn was considered to be similar to those of the âGermanic tribes.â79 Previous research has noted Nilssonâs proposal that âGermanic tribesâ immigrated to what was to become Sweden at the beginning of the Iron Age.80 Nilsson argued that the âagesâ corresponded to different degrees of cultural development; thus he considered the âGermanic tribesâ to be more advanced than the peninsulaâs previous inhabitants, of whom he considered the Sámi to be the last remnants.81
The differences, which this examination exposes, seem to me to have been too great to be explained only as consequences of the habits, customs, and ways of living influencing these races. Therefore, there is substantial reason to assume that they [the differences] stem from a specific destined development type, which is congenital, and which has remained as true to form as the form of their crania.84
Lithograph of the form of a âSwedishâ pelvis in an atlas of pelvic forms. It is likely that the atlas is a copy, or a proof, of Magnus Retzius, Icones pelvium gentium Scandinavia (late 1840s). This particular volume was part of the library which previously belonged to the Swedish Society of Medicine. Neither originator or date is attached, but the content suggests that this is Magnus Retziusâs work. Private collection of Olof Edlund.
While Magnus stated that the âFinnishâ and âLappâ pelves had their own distinct forms, he discerned no differences between the âGeatishâ and the âNorwegianâ
5 Conclusion
This chapter has demonstrated that the motivations for assembling and designating ârace pelvesâ in Magnus Retziusâs collection were entangled with nationalism. The collecting and use of the pelves were connected to the formation of Swedish national identity in the first half of the nineteenth century, through the construction of a past in which antiquarianism and Scandinavianism were enmeshed. Material artifacts and the forms of bones were used as evidence in inquiries into prehistory, to attest to the presence of certain groups of people in a certain territory, at a specific point in time. Thus pelves were, along with skulls and artifacts, empirical foundations of the nation-building project and means of defining who the âSwedish peopleâ were.
While Anders Retzius focused on skulls, Magnus opted for pelves because of his obstetrical interests. The study of pelves enabled him to theorize about connections between womenâs bodies and civilization, in which ideas about sex and race intersected. The core of what constituted the connection between race and sex was the idea that womenâs bodies had a mechanical function, which manifested when giving birth. This tied in with ideas about race and pathology, in which the pathological was constructed in terms of function. Magnus did not explicitly state in his writings that he considered âSwedishâ pelves pathological by default, but that narrow pelves were a common problem. However, he positioned himself as an expert who had the knowledge to manage difficult labors brought on by this condition. The Retzius brothers used their collections as empirical foundations and argued that the degree of âcultural developmentâ dictated the form of the skull and the pelves, which in turn generated consequences in childbirth. The pathology of âtoo-narrowâ pelves was constructed in relation to the size of fetuses and implied to be a result of civilization.
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Retzius, Anders. âCranium af Pampasindian [1855].â In Anders Retzii samlade skrifter af ethnologiskt innehÃ¥ll, edited by Gustaf Retzius, 190â97. Stockholm: Svenska läkaresällskapet, 1864.
Retzius, Anders. âFrenologien bedömd frÃ¥n anatomisk-ethnologisk stÃ¥ndpunkt [1847].â In Anders Retzii samlade skrifter af ethnologiskt innehÃ¥ll, edited by Gustaf Retzius, 95â120. Stockholm: Svenska läkaresällskapet, 1864.
Retzius, Anders. âKort redogörelse för Skandinaviska Naturforskare-Sällskapets 6:te möte i Stockholm Ã¥r 1851.â Hygiea 13, no. 7 (1851): 432â48.
Retzius, Anders. âOm formen af hufvudets benstomme hos olika folkslag [1844].â In Anders Retzii samlade skrifter af ethnologiskt innehÃ¥ll, edited by Gustaf Retzius, 40â57. Stockholm: Svenska läkaresällskapet, 1864.
Retzius, Anders. âOm formen af Nordboarnes kranier [1842].â In Anders Retzii samlade skrifter af ethnologiskt innehÃ¥ll, edited by Gustaf Retzius, 1â36. Stockholm: Svenska läkaresällskapet, 1864.
Retzius, Gustaf, ed. Etnologische Schriften: Nach dem Tode des Verfassers gesammelt. Stockholm: Svenska läkaresällskapet, 1864.
Retzius, Magnus. Afhandling om bäckenförträngning. Stockholm: Norstedt, 1848.
Retzius, Magnus. âBäckenets form hos de folk, som bebo den skandinaviska halfön.â Forhandlinger ved de Skandinaviske Naturforskarnes femte Møde, der holdtes i Kiøbenhavn fra den 12te till den 17te Juli 1847 5 (1849): 836â39.
Retzius, Magnus. âOm bäckenplanerna och deras inflytande pÃ¥ fosterhufudets rörelser under en kronbjudnings-förlossning.â Hygiea 9 (1847): 65â79.
Rich, Miriam. âThe Curse of Civilised Woman: Race, Gender and the Pain of Childbirth in Nineteenth-Century American Medicine.â Gender and History 28, no. 1 (2016): 57â76.
Roque, Ricardo. âStories, Skulls, and Colonial Collections.â Configurations 19 (2011): 1â23.
Schiebinger, Londa. The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Schiebinger, Londa. Natureâs Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.
Stig Sørensen, Marie Louise. âThe Fall of a Nation, the Birth of a Subject: The National Use of Archaeology in Nineteenth-Century Denmark.â In Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe, edited by Margarita DÃaz-Andreu and Timothy Champion, 24â47. London: UCL Press, 1995.
Stocking, George. Victorian Anthropology. New York: Free Press, 1987.
Svanberg, Fredrik. Människosamlarna: Anatomiska museer och rasvetenskap i Sverige, ca 1850â1950. Stockholm: Historiska museet, 2015.
Svanberg, Fredrik. âThe World as Collected: Or, Museum Collections as Situated Materialities.â In Museum Theory, edited by Andrea Wicomb and Kylie Message, 389â415. Chichester: John Wiley, 2015.
Sylvan, O. R. Korvetten Carlskrona sista resa: Inmönstrad 5/8 1845, förlist i Floridagolfen 30/4 1846. Stockholm: Marinlitteraturföreningen, 1996.
Sysling, Fenneke. ââNot Everything That Says Java Is from Javaâ: Provenance and the Fate of Physical Anthropology Collections.â In The Fate of Anatomical Collections, edited by Rina Knoeff and Robert Zwijnenberg, 195â210. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015.
Sysling, Fenneke. Racial Science and Human Diversity in Colonial Indonesia. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2016.
Wellenbergh, J. H. J. Abhandlung über einen Pelvimeter; nebst Wahrnehmungen über die Anwendung desselben. Haag 1831.
Archival Sources and Museum Collections
âBiografi.â Sekreterarens arkiv, k. 27c:1. CHS. [Unsigned, handwritten document about the life of Magnus Retzius, registered at the archive March 10, 1869]
Pelvis preparation, object D75, UMM 408. Museum of Medical History, Uppsala. [Many of the objects which once constituted Magnus Retziusâs collection are now catalogued under the organizational unit UMM.]
Pelvis preparation, object D90, UMM 408. Museum of Medical History, Uppsala.
âProfessor C M Retzius salubrev pÃ¥ Ã¥tskilliga instrumenter och preparater till kirurgiska institutionen 1862.â Medicinska fakulteten, FIV Ãvriga handlingar 1:5. Uppsala University Archive. [Sales contract between Magnus Retzius and Uppsala University with an inventory of the objects]
Protocol for September, 5, 1842. Karolinska Institutet kansliet 1828â1964, AIA Protokoll med bilagor, 4. NAS, Täby.
Retzius, Magnus. An atlas of lithographs of âScandinavian pelves,â probably the unpublished Icones pelvium gentium Scandinavia from the late 1840s. Private collection of Olof Edlund.
Wellenberghâs pelvimeter. UMM0247. Museum of Medical History, Uppsala.
Martin, Woman in the Body, 54.
Hendriksen, âFate of the Beaded Babies.â
Pickstone, Ways of Knowing; Reinarz, âAge of Museum Medicine,â 419â37.
Higgins, âNote,â 14. In the historiography this society is described as promoting scientific racism, in the sense that several of the leading members, such as James Hunt, stated that there was an inherent hierarchy between peoples. Qureshi, âRobert Gordon Latham,â 160â63.
A collection of Anders Retziusâs texts regarding human diversity had been published posthumously in Swedish and German a few years earlier. Retzius, Anders Retzii samlade skrifter; Retzius, Ethnologische schriften.
Ljungström, âSwedish Golgotha.â
Higgins, âNote,â 17.
âProfessor C M Retzius salubrev.â
Sixty-seven pelves still remain, of which about twenty are casts, as well as two unlabeled fetal crania of unknown origin.
On Sweden, see Ljungström, âOscariansk antropologiâ; Svanberg, âWorld as Collected,â 398â404; Svanberg, Människosamlarna, 124â35. Internationally, see, e.g., MacDonald, Human Remains; Fabian, Skull Collectors; Conklin, In the Museum of Man; Sysling, Racial Science.
Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex?, 211â13; Schiebinger, Natureâs Body, 156â60; Fausto-Sterling, âGender, Race, and Nationâ; Qureshi, âDisplaying Sara Baartman.â
This study focused on Mexico around 1900, but it illustrates that this phenomenon occurred in a country during a time of identity crisis. Cházaro, âFrom Anatomical Collection.â
âBiografiâ; Qvarsell, âPatriotism, paternalism och offentlig vÃ¥rd,â 88.
Svanberg, Människosamlarna, 49â50, 167; à hrén, âMuseerna,â 127â29.
Curry et al., Worlds of Natural History.
MacGregor, Naturalists in the Field.
Alberti, Nature and Culture.
à hrén, âMaking Space for Specimens.â
Anders Retzius introduced this index in Retzius, âOm formen af Nordboarnes kranierâ; Gould, Mismeasure of Man.
Retzius, âOm formen af Nordboarnes kranier,â 2, 4â5; Retzius, âOm formen af hufvudets benstomme,â 43â44.
Retzius, âFrenologien bedömd frÃ¥n anatomisk-ethnologisk stÃ¥ndpunkt,â 97â98.
Retzius, âOm formen af hufvudets benstomme,â 42.
Retzius, Afhandling, 14.
Retzius, Afhandling, 6.
Retzius, âOm bäckenplanerna,â 66.
Rich, âCurse of Civilised Woman,â 60â61.
Retzius, Afhandling, 8, 193.
Dias, âVisibility of Difference,â 38.
Grant, ââThose Parts Peculiar to Her Organization.ââ Magnus Retzius used the term âpelvimensoresâ for instruments for measuring the pelvis and the Swedish term âbäckenmätning,â which literally translates to âpelvimetry.â Retzius, Afhandling, 54.
Hoyme, âPhysical Anthropology and Its Instruments.â
âProfessor C M Retzius salubrev.â
Cházaro, âMexican Womenâs Pelves,â 100â115.
Retzius, Afhandling, 35, 47â48.
Augstein, Race.
Stocking, Victorian Anthropology.
Dias, âSéries de crânes,â 205â7.
Fausto-Sterling, âGender Race, and Nation,â 35â36, 38.
à hrén, âMuseerna,â 135â38.
Retzius, âOm formen af hufvudets benstomme,â 40.
Retzius, Afhandling, 86.
âProfessor C M Retzius salubrev.â
Ljungström, âSwedish Golgotha,â 167â68.
Ninety-five names of people who supplied Anders Retzius with skulls or plaster casts thereof have been identified, the majority being active in the study of anatomy. Ljungström, âSwedish Golgotha,â 168.
Pelvis preparation, object D75, text on the label: âPelv. Femina. Mexikana. Dedit Tarras. Nautica. Mus. Obstetr.â Tarras is mentioned in Retzius, âCranium af Pampasindian,â 191.
The corvette Carlskrona had been instructed by the king, when mooring in Buenos Aires in 1846, to sign a declaration of acknowledgement of the newly founded Argentinian Confederation. Sylvan, Korvetten Carlskrona sista resa, 36â38.
âBiografi.â
Sysling, Racial Science, 28â30.
This broad approach to colonialism has been put forward as fruitful. Naum and Nordin, âIntroductionâ; Fur, âColonialism and Swedish History.â
Björk, âOverlapping Histories,â 20â24.
Hall, âSocial Construction of Nationalism,â 94â95.
Jensen, âMakten över forntiden.â
Hilson, âDenmark, Norway, and Sweden,â 195â97.
Jensen, âMakten över forntiden,â 54â55.
Molin, âDen rätta tidens mÃ¥tt.â
Hilson, âDenmark, Norway, and Sweden.â
Eriksson, ââI andans kraft, pÃ¥ sanningens strÃ¥tâ¦.ââ
Eriksson, ââI andans kraft, pÃ¥ sanningens strÃ¥t ⦠,ââ 151.
Ibsen donated two unspecified anatomical preparations to the museum at the Karolinska Institute during the meeting of the Scandinavian naturalists in 1842, and these gifts were considered so valuable that he was thanked with a gold medal. Protocol for September 5, 1842, paragraph 11.
âProfessor C M Retzius salubrev.â The Danish colonial infrastructure is mentioned in Naum and Nordin, âIntroduction,â 6.
Retzius, âKort redogörelse,â 446.
Roque, âStories, Skulls, and Colonial Collections.â
Nordin and Ojala, âCollecting, Connecting, Constructing.â
MacDonald, âCorpse Stories.â
Sysling, ââNot Everything That Says Java.ââ
âProfessor C M Retzius salubrevâ; Pelvis preparation, object D90, described as âFinnishâ on the label.
à hrén, âMuseerna,â 143â44.
Retzius, âOm formen af Nordboarnes kranier,â 23â24.
Stig Sørensen, âFall of a Nationâ; Barton, âScandinavianism, Fennomaniaâ; Barton, âFinland and Norwayâ; Manias, Race, Science, and the Nation.
Retzius, âOm formen af Nordboarnes kranier,â 1.
Retzius, âOm formen af Nordboarnes kranier,â 11.
Nicklasson, âSven Nilsson,â 161â78.
Nilsson, Skandinaviska Nordens Ur-Invånare.
Retzius, âOm formen af Nordboarnes kranier,â 1.
Ljungström, âOscariansk antropologi,â 226â38.
Retzius, âOm formen af Nordboarnes kranier,â 17â18.
Retzius, âBäckenets form,â 836â39.
Retzius, âBäckenets form,â 836â39.
It is listed as a printed work in âBiografi.â
Retzius, âBäckenets form.â
Ljungström, âOscariansk antropologi,â 295, 311.
Nilsson, Skandinaviska Nordens Ur-Invånare, 2, 103.
Retzius, Afhandling, 15. His use of the word âspeciesâ is probably a slip, since he did not explicitly take the position of polygenesis.
Retzius, Afhandling, 14â15.
Retzius, âBäckenets form,â 839.