Farabee, William Curtis, 1865-1925

William Curtis Farabee was born in 1865 and was the second candidate to receive a Ph.D. in physical anthropology at Harvard. Although Farabee is more widely known as an anthropologist and ethnographer, he also studied human genetics under William E. Castle while at Harvard. His dissertation, Hereditary and Sexual Influences in Meristic Variation: A Study of Digital Malformations in Man, discussed the disorder brachydactyly, and was eventually published in 1903.

Dr. Farabee embarked on three trips to South America as a researcher for the Peabody Museum at Harvard and the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn Museum). From 1906-1908, he led the De Milhau-Harvard expedition; his findings were published in 1922 as Indian Tribes of Eastern Peru.

...