[Hans Blutschli as morphology specialist].

The primatologist Hans Bluntschli, M.D. (1877-1962) published several papers on variations in the circulatory system of man and other primates, a description of the fossil New World monkey Homunculus patagonicus as well as works on the function of the jaw and masticatory muscles of man and apes. Caught between the conflicting views of traditional comparative and emerging experimental evolutionary biology, Bluntschli objected to the new genetic theories and increasingly supported neo-Lamarckian ideas of heredity. By studying Bluntschli's articles and unpublished manuscripts one can follow the change of evolutionary concepts from the wide-spread skepticism about Darwin's theory of natural selection around 1900 up to the formulation of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution in the 1940s.