Untrodden Fields of Anthropology

UNTRODDEN FIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY is a pioneering work in the area of Medical Anthropology and is probably one of the earliest works that deals with psychopathology of sexual life in human society than any other work written on the same subject. In the words of the celebrated Sir Richard Burton, “These volumes afford a long sought-opportunity of noticing practices and customs which interest all mankind and which ‘society’ will not hear mentioned.”

This classical work written by a French Army Surgeon first appeared in 1896 and attained immediate success at that time because it dared to touch the more “untouched” and ignored subject (tabooed sex), in a temperate and scientific spirit. In the words of author himself, “This is not an obscene work, but a psychological sketch of the history of the sexual passions of the human race; a stone towards the building of a vast edifice which, as yet, has hardly commenced”. The author’s 30 long years experience in Asia, Africa, America and Oceania placed him in a unique position to provide curious details concerning the manners and customs of almost unknown peoples and tribes.

The author also observed and expressed some esoteric physical peculiarities of Guinean and Martiquinirian’s people, the differences between the Negro in the West Indies, and its native land. Further he focused on the degraded savages of New Caledonia and New Hebrides, painted the voluptuous beauties of Society Islands – the last remaining spot on the earth in which refined sensuality still linge.

Another unique feature of this work is the inquiries into the existence of the sixth sense, i.e., genital sense, the existence of which the author ahs psychologically proved by showing that its special functions were distinct from those of the other senses. At the time of the appearance of the first edition of the work, the author’s findings created an uproar among anthropologists. The present edition includes some of the critical writings and reviews written by noted scholars of that time.

This is the reprint of the second edition divided into two volumes of the English translation and quoting the celebrated French Anthropologist Isidore Liseux, We undertake to say that the most indifferent novel-reader will find enough to sustain his attention from the first page to the last, for the rest, suffice it to say that the title of UNTORDDEN FIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY seems the best that could be selected”. Let this work be regarded as a pioneer effort rather than a finished treatise.