Gustav Schwalbe

Born Aug. 1, 1844, in Quedlinburg; died Apr. 23, 1916, in Strasbourg. German anatomist, histologist, and anthropologist.

Schwalbe studied medicine in Berlin, Zürich, and Bonn. He was a professor of histology at the Institute of Physiology in Leipzig from 1871, a professor of anatomy at Jena from 1873, and a professor of anatomy at Königsberg from 1881. Beginning in 1883 he was a professor of anatomy and director of the Institute of Anatomy in Strasbourg.

Schwalbe’s principal works dealt with the anatomy and histology of bones, the sense organs, and the nervous and vascular systems of animals and man. Beginning in 1886, Schwalbe worked mainly in the field of anthropology. He proposed craniometric and cranioscopic methods of investigating the bones of fossil man. He was the author of classical descriptions of Pithecanthropus and Neanderthal man. He viewed the latter as a particular species of fossil man, the precursor of modern man. The journal Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie began publication in 1899 upon Schwalbe’s initiative.