Louis Bolk

Who was Louis Bolk?

Lodewijk 'Louis' Bolk was a Dutch anatomist who created the fetalization theory about the human body. It states that when a human being is born, it is still a fetus, as can be seen if one pays attention to its big head, to its uncoordinated motility or to its absolute helplessness, for instance. Furthermore, this "prematuration" is specifically human.

Gavin de Beer and Stephen Jay Gould wrote about him and further developed this theory, which is sometimes called neoteny.

Also Jacques Lacan took Bolk's fetalization theory into account in order to introduce his own thesis on the mirror stage.