A special edition of magazine De Boekenwereld shines a new light on Petrus Camper. While the famed anatomist was a staunch opponent of slavery, he also told people to steal skulls from Africa and wanted to experiment on a woman who’d been sentenced to death.
Anatomist and zoologist Petrus Camper (1722-1789) is one of the most famous scientists in the history of the University of Groningen. His fans say he was an enlightened academic who opposed slavery at a time when most people were still in favour.
But in a special edition of De Boekenwereld that will be presented on Wednesday, UG researchers Rina Knoeff and Bart Ramakers say that the truth is much more nuanced. Because he also measured the skulls of different types of people in order to classify them. He rated them from African to Greek god, and in the nineteenth century, his work was used to legitimise racist theories.
Unethical
The special edition was written by academics at the University of Groningen together with Pressing Matter, a research programme at the University of Amsterdam that studies our colonial heritage, as well as the Groningen University Museum and the UB’s Special Collections department.
‘Camper benefited from the ruthless Dutch colonial expansionist mindset’, says Knoeff. He used his colonial networks to put in ‘orders’. Sometimes he wanted animals, but he would also ask for human remains. ‘It’s this colonial aspect that makes the practice of Camper’s anatomical research rather unethical.’
The various studies in De Boekenwereld are meant to showcase how to better understand Camper. His research on skulls, Knoeff explains, wasn’t so much about hierarchies, but about differences. ‘Camper argued that it was fine to categorise people according to their differences. After all, those differences were only superficial. In their essence, all people were the same. That’s why Camper argued that we weren’t allowed to rob black people of their freedom.’
The skulls’ origins
But other aspects of Camper’s work are more questionable. Amsterdam researcher Paul Wolff Mitchell traced the origins of one of Camper’s skulls that’s still in the collection at the University museum.
It had belonged to Khoekhoe woman who had been taken from her grave in South Africa by Camper’s former student Hendrik Le Sueur. Camper’s notes say that Le Sueur had removed her from her grave a day after she’d been buried. Camper also asked for the woman’s ears, which he put in formaldehyde.
That, says Knoeff, is very far removed from enlightened thinking, and wasn’t tolerated back then, either. ‘Even then, grave robbing was taboo.’
Live test subject
Then there’s the story of Siertje Jacobs, written by Karen Hollewand. This woman from Midwolda had been sentenced to death for the murder of her newborn son in 1786. But some people had their doubts. After all, she was ‘simple’ and it wasn’t clear whether she’d actually given birth at all.
Instead of the gallows, Camper proposed an alternative punishment to Stadtholder Willem V. He wanted to perform a ‘symphysiotomy’ on her; an experimental surgery during which the pelvis is widened by cutting into the surrounding cartilage, meant to extract a child that had got stuck. Afterwards, Jacobs would be pardoned.
Camper had previously experimented on dead bodies, but a live test subject would give him information on how people recovered. ‘Should [the prisoner] die suddenly, she will do so without shame and in service of humanity; if she recovers, which is likely, she will have great reason to be grateful for your honour’s merciful treatment’, Camper said.
In his time
It definitely wasn’t Camper’s intention to save the poor woman, says Knoeff. ‘He clearly thought she was guilty. And his alternative punishment wasn’t merciful at all; she wouldn’t receive any anaesthesia during the experiment.’
Camper’s request was denied and Siertje Jacobs was executed ‘normally’.
While Camper’s actions didn’t necessarily differ much from his contemporaries, they do show that it’s impossible to call him either a hero or a racist. ‘These categories aren’t helpful, because we’re looking at the issue from a modern point of view’, says Knoeff. ‘I think you always have to place someone in the context of their time.’
But the stories do provide insight into how science and Camper’s scientific network functioned. And that is important, too. ‘It’s evident that Petrus Camper was an important figure. Not just at the University of Groningen, but for the position of science during the Age of Enlightenment, as well.’