Reading Londa Schiebinger’s Taxonomy for Human Beings, I was intrigued by the history of the classification name “mammalia,” and the social and cultural influences that may have caused Carolus Linneaus (the father of binomial nomenclature) to select such a name. Schiebinger acknowledges that scientists of Linneaus’ period had the awareness of several other characteristics of mammals aside from breast-feeding such as having hair, three ear bones, and a four-chambered heart. Why did Linneaus choose the name “mammalia” to designate this classification, when other options such as “pilosa” was just as applicable a name?

Schiebinger’s answers to my question are comprehensive over the scope of the political, cultural, and social atmosphere of Linneaus’ time and I have particular interest in Schiebinger’s emphasis on breast-feeding. The first time I read this article I had trouble believing the validity of Schiebinger’s argument simply because I thought it seemed “far-fetched.” I understand that Linneaus lived in a male-dominated society but I had trouble believing that the increase in breast-feeding by mothers instead of wet nurses at the time, along with the religious and cultural imagery of the breast, would have ever influenced his system of nomenclature. However, as I try to counter this argument, I can think of no better answer than that of Schiebinger’s in Taxonomy for Human Beings.

As a history major, I see that Schiebinger’s emphasis on the religious and cultural imagery of the breast as a factor in Linneaus’ use of “mammalia” as intriguing. Schiebinger’s article discusses the imagery of the breast as holding significance in Catholic traditions during the Middle Ages, particularly involving the Virgin Mary. Carolus Linneaus was Swedish and after the Protestant Reformation, Lutherism prevailed in Sweden with the Uppsala Synod in 1593 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uppsala_Synod.) Thus, Linneaus grew up in a Protestant Sweden where this imagery may have been present if only as a relic of Catholic tradition. However, I do believe that Schiebinger’s explanation of Linneaus using “mammalia” is valid and I can think of no better answer myself.