[Friedrich Carl Bessel-Hagen, surgeon and anthropologist (2 January 1856-20 December 1945)]

This report deals with the surgeon and anthropologist Friedrich Carl Bessel-Hagen, who was director of the Worms hospital from 1891-1897 and later on was in charge of the Berlin Westend hospital as surgeon. His surgical scientific interest was related to spleen, pancreas and plastic surgery and especially to the treatment of the clubfoot. In the anthropologic field he became well known by the examination of Immanuel Kant's skull (together with Kupffer) which was exhumed in the year 1880. In their report they investigated the question wether the cranial dimensions indicated brain size and development. They concluded that the cranium of the great philosopher encompassed an extraordinarily voluminous brain, and that especially the width of the skull corresponded to the intelligence.