Some features of Indochina Human Research Institute (1937-1944)

Abstract

More than seventy years ago, an intellectual partnership between the social sciences and humanity discipline, specifically the ethnologists of l’Ecole FranVaise d’Extrème Orient (EFEO), anthropologists and anatomists of Hanoi Medical University, was established to develop the Indochina Human Research Institute. The Institute was an institution assigned with scientific research activities and had a legal status in the condition of financial autonomy. During its short life (from late 1937 to 1944), the Institute had published a wide range of scientific works related to human research in Indochina region as well as in other Far Eastern coutries. Many scientific woks of the Instutue are still of paramount values, particularly in the fields of medicine, anthropology, ethnology, folk culture, archeology, history, statistics, etc. Some members of the Institute, who were Vietnamese, later became leading scientists and were conferred with the Hochiminh Prize for their science merits. They included among others such Professors as Nguyễn Văn Huyên, Trần Văn Giáp, Đỗ Xuân Hợp, Tôn Thất Tùng, and Nguyễn Xuân Nguyên. Bearing upon the six journals published by the Institute between 1939 and 1944 (wich are currently retained at the Social Sciences Library, coded 4o 2107), this article is aimed at tracing back the formulation, organization and some scientific works of the Indochina Human Research Institute. These work were basically done by Vietnamese scientists and about Vietnam.