Iwan Bloch

Iwan Bloch (1872 to 1922), also known as Ivan Bloch, was a German dermatologist and psychiatrist, born in Delmenhorst in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, who is often called the first sexologist. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld and Albert Eulenburg he proposed a new science of sexuality, Sexualwissenschaft. In 1906 he published Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit, translated as The Sexual Life of our Time in its Relations to Modern Civilization, intended as a complete encyclopedia of the sexual sciences. He also rediscovered the lost manuscript of the Marquis de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom, which he published in 1904 under the pseudonym Eugen Duhren. He began a multi-volume Handbook of Sexology in 1912, but it was left unfinished when he died at fifty. Sigmund Freud credited his studies with helping develop an anthropological approach to sexuality, replacing the earlier pathological treatment of homosexuality.