Phrenology as clinical neuroscience: how American academic physicians in the 1820s and 1830s used phrenological theory to understand neurological symptoms.
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Clinical Medicine↗
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Was phrenology a reform science? Towards a new generalization for phrenology.
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History, 19th Century↗
Phrenology in the science and culture of the 19th century.
In the last decade of the 18th century, Franz Joseph Gall of Vienna invented a combination of physiognomy and brain localization that he originally called "craniology" (the science of the head) and later called "organology" (the science of the organs of the brain). Between 1800 and 1812, he worked with Johann Christoph Spurzheim on a variety of important neuroanatomic studies to support this new science. By 1812, when they parted company in Paris, Spurzheim had become intrigued with the psychosocial potential of the undertaking, which he renamed "phrenology" (the science of the mind). Because a phrenological examination (palpation of skull prominences) could provide an analysis of a person's strengths and weaknesses, Spurzheim thought that his system could lead to personal improvement for everyone, including the laboring classes. He was thus a 19th century reformer, generally on the liberal side of the political and social spectrum. Spurzheim spread his gospel to Britain through several long lecture tours, and phrenology became briefly popular through the efforts of other British reformers, especially George Combe. In 1832, Spurzheim came to the United States. Three months later, he died in Boston, a martyr to his cause. Phrenology then spread widely into American popular culture, encouraged by the entrepreneurial efforts of "the phrenological Fowlers" and others like them. By 1843, the entire Western scientific community rejected organology and phrenology. All forms of cerebral localization were lumped with phrenology and similarly repudiated. Nonetheless, Gall's organology was the first comprehensive, premodern statement of a theory of cerebral localization. The early pioneers of modern localization, especially Paul Broca and David Ferrier, were careful to define how their theories differed from phrenology, even as they provided the clinical and scientific data that confirmed some of its basic tenets.
Culture↗
Phrenology and the neurosciences: contributions of F. J. Gall and J. G. Spurzheim.
The pseudoscience of phrenology arose from the observations and intuitions of Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) and his disciple Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776-1832). Gall believed that mental functions are localized in discrete parts of the brain, which he called organs. He located the organs subserving intellectual functions chiefly in the cerebral cortex. To support this doctrine, Gall and Spurzheim carried out extensive neuro-anatomical studies, and made some important discoveries. The Gordon Craig Library contains a book by Spurzheim on the anatomy of the brain, published in London in 1826, which summarizes these discoveries. Gall also believed that the functional strength of the cerebral and cerebellar organs was expressed by their bulk: a well-developed organ caused a bulge in the overlying cranial bone. Hence, feeling the bumps of the skull was a means of assessing the individual's personality. This very fallacious component of Gall's doctrine had great influence in the nineteenth century, affecting psychiatry, criminology and educational theory. Further research demolished Gall's doctrine, and phrenology sank into disrepute. Nevertheless, phrenological thinking played an important part in the growth of clinical neurology in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Austria↗
[At the centre of all gazes: an approach to the historiography of phrenology].
Since the late 19th century, phrenology has been regarded at best as a pseudo-science popularised by quacks. During the 1970s, representatives of the new social history of science and medicine chose it as their favourite target for the in-depth construction of scientific orthodoxy. Since then, different approaches to phrenology have helped to change a 19th century view focused on the emergence of science as a profession and on the new technical nature of medicine. In this paper, I analyse the different contributions to the study of phrenology in Great Britain and France over the past three decades and point out some aspects that should receive more attention in future research.
France↗
Obeying the laws of hereditary descent: phrenological views on inheritance and eugenics.
Phrenologists were the first social scientists to construct a view of human nature in which the inheritability of both physical and mental qualities played a major role. This paper shows that phrenologists addressed many of the same issues that were later to be addressed by social Darwinists and eugenicists. The context within which the phrenologists addressed these issues, however, was that of early-nineteenth-century health reform. Phrenological views of inheritance were intimately connected with the phrenological credo that humans are part of nature and therefore must live according to the laws of nature.
Eugenics↗
Mark Twain on phrenology.
Mark Twain was a noted 19th century American writer and humorist. He often elaborated upon the personalities of his characters, and his observational skills reflected a strong interest in psychology. Similarly, he found an interest in phrenology, a pseudoscience that purported to characterize personality traits according to elevations or depressions on the head. Twain's style is clearly reflected in the interesting essay he wrote regarding his personal experience with phrenology.
Famous Persons↗
[Introductory notes on the origin of phrenology: the work of Vincenzo Malacarne].
The authors examine and evince the links between F.J. Gall's phrenology and Vincenzo Malacarne's studies of encephalous anatomy and mental disorders, especially in the ideas developed by the latter from 1760 to 1794. Malacarne came to believe in those years that mental disorders were organic in nature, being exhibited through alterations in the endocranium organs that could be anatomically detected and diagnosed by studying the patient's cranium. His correspondence with Bonnet enabled Malacarne to anticipate Gall in positing that the faculties of the intellect are congenital and those of the endocranium are organs consisting of individual parts each of which controls a specific intellectual activity. This in turn strengthened Malacarrne's conviction that the cranium's structure matched the development of its parts and led him to invent the cephalometer. Thus convinced of the compound nature of the endocranium's organs, Malacarne went on to develop Bonnet's thesis whereby the peculiarity of the nerve cells and their interaction were assigned a central role in intellectual activities. Yet, despite the evident fact that Malacarne attributed to the cerebellum functions proper to the brain, the points at which his and Gall's ideas overlapped were such as to make ambiguous the former's violent polemics against the latter. Many of the cricticisms he directed at Gall seemed to be dictated by Malacarne's desire to side with Napoleon's and the Catholic Church's condemnation of the former. Others showed that Malacarne wove together personal motives, especially irritation over Gall's outright rejection of his Encefalotomia and scientifically well-grounded criticism of Gall's erroneous ideas concerning the substance of the cortex and the latter's links to nerves, to name the most prominent of many such errors. Even more damaging was Malacarne's unfounded allegation that Gall had less than a thorough grasp of anatomy in that it led the Italian medical establishment to view phrenology as a popular science for many decades thereafter.
Encephalitis↗
Prolegomena to a history of radical brains in the nineteenth century: physiognomics, phrenology, brain anatomy.
This paper deals with the coming into being of skulls and brains of geniuses as objects of scientific investigation. Late-eighteenth-century physiognomics and physical anthropology established parameters for explaining intellectual differences among human beings. These were refined and modified by phrenology. Although phrenology was contested, its methods for investigating the brains of geniuses presaged the beginnings of modern elite brain research in the 1850's. In this decade, the older interest in brains and skulls of geniuses, which was part of the hagiography of celebrated persons, was transformed into a systematic and comparative exploration of radical brains.
Brain↗
Vocational guidance during the Depression: phrenology versus applied psychology.
The paper describes the design and use of a machine, the "Psychograph," which automatically measured the size and shape of the skull and provided evaluations of mental traits according to phrenological principles. Developed in 1930, the psychograph was billed as a diagnostic tool capable of providing suitable vocational guidance to the thousands of unemployed as a result of the Depression. Its appearance prompted a vigorous opposition from the Psychology Department at the University of Minnesota, especially in the person of Donald L. Paterson. Subsequently, the psychograph was merely exploited for its entertainment value and disappeared after the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago.
Aptitude↗
The role of gender, phrenology, discrimination and nervous prostration in Clara Barton's career.
Clara Barton was 39 years old before she became involved in Civil War humanitarian activities. Prior to that time, three factors shaped her personality and her future: phrenology gave her philosophical principles to live by, especially "Know Thyself"; sex discrimination on her first two jobs steeled her for living in a male dominated Victorian era; and psychohygienic therapy for her long term nervous prostration changed her behavioral approach to illness and to life. With these three influences in hand, Barton went on to gain world-wide adulation. During the Civil War, she was revered as the American Florence Nightingale, although she was not really a nurse. At age 55, Barton first embarked on the lengthy struggle to found the American Red Cross. She was president of the Red Cross for 23 years and rendered aid and comfort at a host of national and international calamities. She died at age 90 in her Glen Echo, Maryland home on April 12, 1912.
Female↗
The rise and fall of phrenology in Australia.
In the first half of the nineteenth century phrenology, which was claimed to be the first science of the mind, experienced enormous popularity in the western world. It gave rise to a widespread movement attracting the attention of the professional and lay members of society. In Australia, as elsewhere, it had influence in penology and criminology, psychiatry, notions of racial inferiority, education, anthropology and popular application. By the second half of the nineteenth century, following advances in the knowledge of neuro-anatomy, it became relegated to the status of a pseudo-science. As such, it remained popular with charlatans and the public well into the twentieth century.
Australia↗
[The reception of Franz Joseph Gall's doctrine on phrenology in Holland shortly after 1800].
Between 1800 and 1810 Gall's 'Hersen-Schedelleer' [= doctrine on phrenology] received increasing attention in Holland, just as it did in Germany and France. Gall had tried to connect visible human skull marks with brain anatomy, brain functioning and behaviour, a relationship in which he also compared man and animal. Scientists as well as people in non-scientific circles tried to find an answer to the question to what extent Gall's ideas on human brain anatomy and the development of the skull in relation to behaviour were acceptable. Besides there was a growing interest in the possible consequences of Gall's theory for moral life. However, Gall's doctrine was largely based on unproved and unprovable assumptions. Gall's visit to Holland, in the early spring of 1806, had a polarizing effect on supporters and adversaries, as it had had in Germany. In Holland Gerard Vrolik, professor at the Amsterdam Athenaeum Illustre, published the first treatise on this subject, in which he revealed himself to be a hesitant and prudent supporter of Gall's theories. From early 1804 Jacob Eliza Doornik, physician and scientist, and Martinus Stuart, theologist and historian, played a leading part in the discussion on this subject. The former opposed all aspects of Gall's theory. The latter - contrary to what one would expect - supported Gall in every way, with both regard to his explanation of brain anatomy and physiology and to his views on the relationship between the shape of the brain and the development of the skull. Remarkably he accepted Gall's materialism and rejected his fatalism. We can only explain Stuart's defence of Gall's moral views supposing he considered these in a religious framework. In Stuart's conviction God had given man a certain tendency to evil which man has to accept as a necessity in the fight against evil and the search for good. ...
Brain↗
[Phrenology--another point of view].
The biography of doctor Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) and his theory of phrenology were outlined highlighting the criminological issues of it. The real scientific aspects of his work were pointed out as well as their relation to modern investigations of human brain. The unsatisfactory interest of forensic community concerning the issue of postmortem research of psychiatric disorders relevant to criminology and forensic medicine were also highlighted.
Austria↗
[The physiognomical and phrenological atlas of Mr. Ysabeau among those of Lavater and Gall and that of Lombroso].
Authors present the almost unknown work by Ysabeau, with particular regard to the Physiognomic and Phrenologic Atlas. The most important pages and the 24 tables are reproduced. The history of such collections, from Lavater and Gall to our days, is critically reviewed.
Anthropology, Physical↗
Beyond phrenology: brain and language in the next millennium.
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Brain↗
Asymmetries of the skull and handedness. Phrenology revisited.
Some of the asymmetries noted in cerebral computerized transaxial tomography (CTT) studies are reflected in the shape of the skull resulting most often in backward protrusion of the occipital bone on the left and a less striking forward protrusion of the right frontal bone. Asymmetries are less marked in left-handed individuals but the opposite features, i.e. forward protrusion of the left frontal bone and posterior protrusion of the right occipital bone, are more frequent in left handers than in right handers.
Adult↗