author
Iwan Bloch
1872–1922
A pioneering German physician who helped turn the study of sexuality into a serious modern field, he is often remembered as one of the earliest sexologists. He also brought forgotten historical texts back into view, linking medical research with cultural history.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Delmenhorst in 1872, Iwan Bloch studied medicine in Germany and went on to practice in Berlin as a dermatologist. Over time, his interests widened beyond clinical medicine to the history, psychology, and social understanding of human sexuality.
He is widely described as an early founder of sexology and is often called the first sexologist. Working at a time when the subject was rarely treated in a systematic way, he argued for studying sexuality through medicine, history, anthropology, and culture together rather than as a narrow moral question.
Bloch also became known for rediscovering and publishing the Marquis de Sade's long-lost manuscript The 120 Days of Sodom under the pseudonym Eugène Dühren. He died in Berlin in 1922, but his work remained part of the early foundation for modern sexual science and reform debates.