Johannes Ranke

Johannes Ranke (23 August 1836, Thurnau – 26 July 1916, Munich) was a German physiologist and anthropologist. He was the son of theologian Friedrich Heinrich Ranke (1798–1876), the brother of pediatrician Heinrich von Ranke (1830–1909) and father to pulmonologist Karl Ernst Ranke (1870–1926).

Biography He studied medicine and natural sciences at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the University of Tübingen, the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, and the University of Paris, receiving his medical doctorate from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 1861. As a student, his influences included pathologist Rudolf Virchow and chemist Justus von Liebig. In 1863, he obtained his habilitation with the thesis, Galvanischen Leitungswiderstand des lebenden Muskels, and spent the following years conducting physiological studies on tetanus and human nutrition. In 1868, he published a textbook on human physiology, titled Grundzüge der Physiologie des Menschen.

As a lecturer at the anatomical-physiological institute at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, he gave lectures on anthropology and general natural history (1863–69). He became an associate professor on the latter subject in 1869. From 1876 onward, his interests dealt almost entirely with problems associated with prehistory and anthropology. He made numerous contributions in his research of the physical anthropology associated with prehistoric Bavaria, being especially interested in studies of human skull forms. From his anthropological research, he was opposed to the racial ideology theories espoused by Arthur de Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In 1886–87 he published an acclaimed two-volume textbook on scientific anthropology, called Der Mensch. In 1885, he created the "prehistoric division" within the Paläontologischen Sammlung des Staates; in 1889 the prehistoric collection had become an independent entity.