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JAMES COWLES PRICHARD (1786-1848)

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 315 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JAMES COWLES See also:PRICHARD (1786-1848)  , See also:English physician and ethnologist, was See also:born on the 11th of See also:February 1786 at See also:Ross in See also:Herefordshire . His parents were of the Society of See also:Friends, and he was educated at See also:home, especially in See also:modern See also:languages and See also:general literature . He adopted See also:medicine as a profession mainly because of the facilities it offered for anthropological investigations . He took his M.D. at See also:Edinburgh, afterwards See also:reading for a See also:year at Trinity See also:College, See also:Cambridge, whence, joining the See also:Church of See also:England, he migrated to St See also:John's College, See also:Oxford, afterwards entering as a See also:gentleman commoner at Trinity College, Oxford, but taking no degree in either university . In 1810 he settled at See also:Bristol as a physician, and in 1813 published his Researches into the See also:Physical See also:History of See also:Man, in 2 vols., afterwards extended to 5 vols . The central principle of the See also:book is the See also:primitive unity of the human See also:species, acted upon by causes which have since divided it into permanent varieties or races . The See also:work is dedicated to See also:Blumenbach, whose five races of man are adopted . But where See also:Prichard excelled Blumenbach and all his other predecessors was in his grasp of the principle that See also:people should be studied by combining all available characters . One investigation begun in this work requires See also:special mention, the bringing into view of the fact, neglected or contradicted by philologists, that the See also:Celtic nations are allied by See also:language with the Slavonian, See also:German and Pelasgian (See also:Greek and Latin), thus forming a See also:fourth See also:European See also:branch of the See also:Asiatic stock (which would now be called Indo-European or See also:Aryan) . His special See also:treatise containing Celtic compared with See also:Sanskrit words appeared in 1831 under the See also:title Eastern Origin of the Celtic nations . It is remarkable that the See also:essay by Adolphe Pictet, De l'Afinite See also:des langues celtiques avec le sanscrit, which was crowned by the See also:French See also:Academy and made its author's reputation, should have been published in 1837 in evidentignorance of the earlier and in some respects stricter investigations of Prichard . In 1843 Prichard published his Natural History of Man, in which he reiterated his belief in the specific unity of man, pointing out that " the same inward and See also:mental nature is to be re-cognized in all the races." Prichard may fairly be honoured with the title of the founder of the English branch of the sciences of See also:anthropology and See also:ethnology .

In 1811 he was appointed physician to St See also:

Peter's See also:hospital, Bristol, and in 1814 to the Bristol infirmary . In 1822 he published Treatise on Diseases of the See also:Nervous See also:System (pt. i.), and in 1835 a Treatise on See also:Insanity and other Disorders affecting the Mind, in which he advanced the theory of the existence of a distinct mental disease, " moral insanity." In 1842, following up this See also:suggestion, he published On the different forms of Insanity in relation to See also:Jurisprudence designed for the use of Persons concerned in Legal Questions regarding Unsoundness of Mind . In 1845 he was made a See also:commissioner in lunacy, and removed to See also:London . He died there three years later, on the 23rd of See also:December, of rheumatic See also:fever . At the See also:time of his See also:death he was See also:president of the Ethnological Society and a See also:fellow of the Royal Society . Among his less important See also:works were : A See also:Review of the See also:Doctrine of a Vital Principle (1829); On the Treatment of Hemiplegia (1831); On the Extinction of some Varieties of the Human See also:Race (1839); See also:Analysis of See also:Egyptian See also:Mythology (1819) . See Memoir by Dr See also:Thomas See also:Hodgkin (1798–1866) in the See also:Journal of the Ethnological Society (Feb . 1849) ; Memoir read before the See also:Bath and Bristol branch of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association (See also:March 1849) by Dr J . A . See also:Symonds (Journ . Eth . See also:Soc., (185o) ; Prichard and Symonds in Special Relation to Mental See also:Science, by Dr Hack See also:Tuke (1891) .

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