Abraham Bäck, Blackness, and Linnean racial science In February 1744, famous Swedish physician Abraham Bäck (1713–1795) dissected the body of an unknown Black man who had recently died at the Hôpital de la Charité in Paris. This was a rare occurrence in eighteenth-century Europe. And it was unique for a physician from Sweden, which did not have colonial possessions and did not partake directly in the slave-trade during the Age of Liberty (Frihetstiden, 1719–1772). Based on untapped archival materials, this lecture will explore Bäck’s little...
