ABSTRACT
East Asia did not escape the taint of scientific racism. From the 1860s it witnessed the arrival of Western scholars who subscribed to this approach and promulgated its tenets. The idea that humanity is broadly divided into large groups that inhabit different geographical habitats and are characterized by distinct corporeal and mental characteristics dates back to classical Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages. 1 However, during the late eighteenth century and especially around the mid-nineteenth century, this idea gained an aura of scientific validity. It was used to justify territorial expansion and the subjugation of vast native populations. Leading the quest for measuring human diversity were the medical practitioners who filled the ranks of recently established ethnographic and anthropological societies. Quite a few of them ventured overseas to observe the Other in its own habitat.
