Arnold Aletrino

Aletrino Arnold ( born April 1, 1858 in Amsterdam, † January 17, 1916 in Chernez at Montreux ) was a Dutch doctor, anthropologist and author who has published several works on homosexuality in Dutch and French.

Aletrino was born the son of Salomon Aletrino and Selima Pineda. Aletrino was a friend as a medical student with Frederik van Eeden and Jacob Israël de Haan. Aletrino belonged to the Dutch group of Tachtigers, a young and revolutionary tendency of authors. 1892 married Aletrino Rachel Mendes da Costa, who committed suicide five years later. Later Aletrino Jupie van Stockum married.

Between 1889 and 1906 Aletrino wrote several novels and a collection of stories. During this time Aletrino worked as a doctor in Amsterdam. In his last years Aletrino was seriously ill and lived with his wife in Switzerland.

Aletrino was a student of Cesare Lombroso, who attributed the crime of people on a degenerate central nervous system. Aletrino broke with Lombroso's views in the evaluation of homosexual people in an article of 1897. Aletrino In this article, wrote that homosexuality should be regarded in a different way and homosexual men are perfectly normal and healthy. In later works he committed against the legal intolerance and the criminalization of homosexuality in Europe.

1901 defended Aletrino homosexual people at the Fifth Congress of Criminal Anthropology in Amsterdam. He was accused to defend immorality. Throughout his life he continued his efforts. more tolerance and enlightenment in the topic to achieve homosexuality in society. 1912 Aletrino participated in the Dutch branch of the organization Scientific- Humanitarian Committee, which was established in 1897 in Germany by LGBT activist Magnus Hirschfeld.