Adolph Heilborn’s Theories on Women

I can learn little personally about Adolf Heilborn (1873-1941). But his book THE OPPOSITE SEXES caused a bit of a stir when it appeared in 1927, given that he described the female human as the missing link between ape and male human. Naturally, there was, um, a little pushback.

Original article here.

Here is the bio of his opponent.

But maybe it was all a joke! If this bookplate belongs to the same fellow, we can see he had a sense of humor.

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Comments

Sounds like Heilborn and Arthur Thomson would have got on well. Both offering up essentially the same theory, in the same year:

http://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/scientist_who_thought_women_were_like_apes/

Since Heilborn wrote an entire book about the theory, I'm guessing he was the originator of it, and maybe Thomson got wind of it and was offering reinforcement.

Posted by Alex on 08/26/16 at 07:25 AM

Alex--I came across Heilborn accidentally, without even recalling your post of just a few months ago! What a leaky brain I have. But perhaps there was a subconscious remnant of your earlier find.

Posted by Paul on 08/26/16 at 08:58 AM

It's a great find! And now makes me curious whether there were even more women-hating scientists promoting the "women are like apes" theory.

Posted by Alex on 08/26/16 at 09:25 AM

Is it just a coincidence that today (Aug 26) is Women's Equality Day?

(I'm certainly not going to mention it's also National Dog Day . . . I'm sure that's also just a coincidence.)

Posted by Phideaux on 08/26/16 at 10:54 AM

I'm betting he didn't care for his mother. She probably forced to brush his teeth as a kid. I wonder how he felt about his father?

Posted by KDP on 08/26/16 at 02:01 PM

Too bad Helena Blavatsky wasn't still around to weigh in on the matter.

Posted by Eoin on 08/26/16 at 07:45 PM

Here is the English translation of the website on the bookplate: http://raubgut.zlb.de/index.php/Splash/Index/lang/en_US
As for those musical notes, it looks like C C C F, with the C's being eighth notes and the F a half note. I don't know if that's a chord or if it is from any particular piece of music; any musicians here?

Posted by Fritz G on 08/27/16 at 07:21 AM

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