Andre Adolf Retzius was Swedish anthropologist known for his contributions to comparative anatomy, histology and anthropology. Retzius was born in Stockholm, Sweden on October 13, 1796, the son of Anders Jahan Retzius a professor of natural history at the University of Lund. The younger Retzius shared many of his father's interests and he eventually enrolled at the same school where his father taught. There he met an anatomy professor, Arvid Henrik Florman, who helped develop his interest in zoology. Retzius spent 1816 at Copenhagen with anatomist Ludwig Levin Jacobson, the physicist Han Christian Oersted, and zoologist J.H. Reinhard. In 1819, at age 23, he received a degree in medicine from the University of Lund; the same year his thesis Observationes in Anatomiam Chondropterygium Praecipue Squali et Rajae Generum, which dealt with the anatomy of cartilaginous fish, was published.

By 1823 Retzius was made professor of veterinary science at the Stockholm Veterinary Institute; a...