Von Luschan's chromatic scale (VLS) is a method of classifying

skin color Human skin color ranges from the darkest brown to the lightest hues. Differences in skin color among individuals is caused by variation in pigmentation, which is the result of genetics (inherited from one's biological parents and or individu ...

. It is also called the von Luschan scale or von Luschan's scale. It is named after its inventor,

Felix von Luschan Felix Ritter von Luschan (11 August 1854 – 7 February 1924) was an Austrian doctor, anthropologist, explorer, archaeologist and ethnographer. Life Luschan was born the son of a lawyer in Hollabrunn, Lower Austria, and attended the Akademisches ...

. The equipment consists of 36 opaque glass tiles which were compared to the subject's skin, ideally in a place which would not be exposed to the sun (such as under the arm). The von Luschan scale was used to establish racial classifications of

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

s according to skin color; in this respect it is in contrast to the

Fitzpatrick scale The Fitzpatrick scale (also Fitzpatrick skin typing test; or Fitzpatrick phototyping scale) is a numerical classification schema for human skin color. It was developed in 1975 by American dermatologist Thomas B. Fitzpatrick as a way to estimate th ...

intended for the classification of the

skin type The human skin is the outer covering of the body and is the largest organ of the integumentary system. The skin has up to seven layers of ectodermal tissue guarding muscles, bones, ligaments and internal organs. Human skin is similar to mos ...

of individuals introduced in 1975 by Harvard dermatologist

Thomas B. Fitzpatrick Thomas B. Fitzpatrick (December 19, 1919 – November 16, 2003) was an American dermatologist. He was Chairman of the Department of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Massachusetts General Hospital Dermatology Service from 19 ...

to describe

sun tanning Sun tanning or tanning is the process whereby skin color is darkened or tanned. It is most often a result of exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight or from artificial sources, such as a tanning lamp found in indoor tanning beds. ...

behavior. The von Luschan scale was used extensively throughout the first half of the 20th century in

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

studies and

anthropometry Anthropometry () refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various atte ...

. However, the results were inconsistent: in many instances, different investigators would give different readings of the same person. The von Luschan scale was largely abandoned by the early 1950s, replaced with methods utilizing reflectance

spectrophotometry Spectrophotometry is a branch of electromagnetic spectroscopy concerned with the quantitative measurement of the reflection or transmission properties of a material as a function of wavelength. Spectrophotometry uses photometers, known as spec ...

. The following table shows the 36 categories of the von Luschan scale in relation to the six categories of the Fitzpatrick scale:

References

External links

Von Luschan's Chromatic Scale
{{in lang, it (at bottom) and other anthropometric instruments at the Natural History Museum of Florence Anthropometry Skin pigmentation Scientific racism Color scales

References

Further reading

External links