Hermann Klaatsch

Hermann Klaatsch was a German physician, anatomist, physical anthropologist and evolutionist, born in Berlin in 1863, the son of a physician. He studied medicine and biology at Heidelberg and Berlin, worked in Rudolf Virchow's laboratory and at the Augusta Hospital, and in 1885 became a scientific assistant at the anatomical institute under Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz and received his medical degree. He taught at the University of Heidelberg from 1890 and later at the University of Breslau, where in 1912 he developed a course in topographic anatomy. His early work on the development of friction skin and the volar pads of humans and primates is cited in fingerprint literature. Between 1904 and 1907 he travelled in Australia and Java to study native peoples. His collecting there is remembered with disapproval, because he dug up Aboriginal graves and removed human remains despite local opposition. He died in 1916.