De animal a hombreel acta fundacional de la primera estación primatológica del mundo (Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, 1912)

Abstract

The great development achieved by the natural experimental science during the second half of the XIXth century, due to animal models, was a relevant advancement both in the experimental physiology and in the experimental psychology. Then the influence of the basis of the theory of evolution of biological species proposed by Charles Darwin was added to this condition. The union and concatenation of these two trends implied the beginning of the comparative psychophysiology and the desire to study the central nervous system of the species closer to man, i. e. big apes (chimpanzee, bonobo, orangutan and gorilla). These types of plannings, which were present in the most of the European scientists, were discussed for the first time in the Imperial Germany. In fact, the neurophysiologist from the University of Berlin Max Rothmann gave a lecture on this subject to a big number of German naturalists and doctors in Münster, in September 1912, which was completely published in the Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift (October, 1912, the 14th). Within this lecture, the author proposes the establishment of a primatologic station in order to study the psychophysiology and the nervous system of big apes. In this paper the text, the context and the problems concerning the starting of the station are studied and commented. The novelty of this planning was based on to keep the animals in the most natural conditions as possible, never done till then, since the common use was to have animals in captivity in Victorian zoos, without any preoccupation about the environmental and climatic circumstances which could affect them. Moreover, in order to accomplish the feasibility of this proposal, an interesting geographical innovation was suggested: animals not only should be kept in the closest state to freedom but both their capture and their transfer would be economically viable and would allow to researchers simple travels. All these factors made the election of Tenerife possible.