Archive for Sexology

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The following sampler gives a first impression of the documents in our collection, which contains many more items than are shown here. The entire collection can be studied on location at our archive during regular opening hours.

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Iwan Bloch, the "father of sexology", was a Berlin dermatologist of enormous erudition. He spoke several languages, including Greek and Latin and was an avid reader of historical literature. He possessed a personal library of over 40 000 books as well as an extensive collection of autographs. His many socio-cultural studies in sexology earned him an international reputation as a medical historian. (He also discovered de Sade’s manuscript of the "120 days of Sodom", which had been believed to be lost.) In 1907, Bloch proposed the new concept of a science of sexuality: Sexualwissenschaft or sexology. With his colleague Magnus Hirschfeld and others, he contributed to organizing this science, co-editing a Journal for Sexology and editing a "Comprehensive Handbook of Sexology in a Series of Monographs" (because of WWI and Bloch’s early death, only a few volumes appeared). He himself wrote the first volume on "Prostitution". He died rather unexpectedly at the age of 50. For a list of Bloch's writings, click here.

1. Iwan Bloch in his dermatological practice. [47K]	2. Bloch with his wife Rosa (born Heinemann) in 1896. [46K]	3. Title page of Bloch’s great study "The Sexual life of Our Time". In this book he proposed the new concept of sexology. [52K]

4. English edition of the same study (1908). [81K]	5. Newspaper clip of 1910, reporting that a young man dressed as a woman had been arrested under suspicion of disguising himself in order to commit a crime, but that Magnus Hirschfeld and Iwan Bloch had obtained his release by stating to the police that he was a „transvestite“ and therefore harmless. (The term "transvestite" had just been coined by Hirschfeld a few months before. This is the first instance of it being used in the popular press.) [175K]	6. Title page of Bloch’s great study of "Prostitution" vol. I. (The second, apparently fragmentary volume was published posthumously and did not reach the level of the first). [100K]

7. Title page of the "Journal for Sexology", edited by Bloch and Eulenburg. [102K]	8. Bloch (center) working in a military hospital during WWI. [63K]	9. Postcard written in the hospital by Bloch, commemorating the death of his mother (March 15, 1922). Shortly thereafter, Bloch himself died. [66K]

-- Please note: All images are quick load JPEG's. To get the full size just click on them for a larger image.

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