Le Cat and the Physiology of Negroes

Abstract

The Origin of Negroes,” Ephraim Chambers wrote in the 1728 Cyclopaedia, “and the cause of that remarkable difference in complexion from the rest of mankind, has much perplexed the naturalists; nor has anything satisfactory been yet offered on that hand.” From the vantage of the history of science, Le Cat’s entire career, quite unsurveyed, incidentally, is as exciting as that part of it represented by his contribution to the age-old debate about the color of negro skin, its origins and history, from the beginning of man to the eighteenth century. In 1741, a momentous episode in the eighteenth-century history of this medical debate occurred. Throughout the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the scientific-medical community debated questions regarding the origin of Negroes and their black skin.