This craniological explanation of “Prussian ferocity” appeared in an article in The Washington Post on June 5, 1918. Temkin, O. (1947). Gall and the phrenological movement. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 21(3), 275-321. Today, scientists don't believe that the brain is divided into 35 different sections that control behavior like "combativeness," "self-esteem," and "hope." But ideas from phrenology have found their way into modern medicine. Just consider the historic case of Phineas Gage. Erik Grayson. "Weird Science, Weirder Unity: Phrenology and Physiognomy in Edgar Allan Poe" Mode 1 (2005): 56–77. Also online ( archive). Through careful observation and extensive experimentation, Gall believed he had established a relationship between aspects of character, called faculties, with precise organs in the brain.

Phrenology was introduced at a time when the old theological and philosophical understanding of the mind was being questioned and no longer seemed adequate in a society that was experiencing rapid social and demographic changes. [68] Phrenology became one of the most popular movements of the Victorian Era. In part phrenology's success was due to George Combe tailoring phrenology for the middle class. Combe's book On the Constitution of Man and its Relationship to External Objects was one of the most popular of the time, selling over two hundred thousand copies in a ten-year period. Phrenology's success was also partly because it was introduced at a time when scientific lectures were becoming a form of middle-class entertainment, exposing a large demographic of people to phrenological ideas who would not have heard them otherwise. [69] As a result of the changing times, new avenues of exposure and its multifaceted appeal, phrenology flourished in popular culture [70] although it was discredited as scientific theory by 1840. In the second-last article in our series Biology and Blame, James Bradley details some interesting facts about this pseudo-science. Eling P, Finger S. Franz Joseph Gall's non‐cortical faculties and their organs. The History of the Behavioral Sciences. 2019;56(1):7-19. doi:10.1002/jhbs.21994

McCandless, Peter (1992). "Mesmerism and Phrenology in Antebellum Charleston: 'Enough of the Marvellous' ". The Journal of Southern History. 58 (2): 199–230. doi: 10.2307/2210860. JSTOR 2210860.

Considered a pseudoscience today, phrenology once claimed to predict a person's character and mental traits based on the shape of their head.Parker Jones, O.; Alfaro-Almagro, F.; Jbabdi, S. (2018). "An empirical, 21st century evaluation of phrenology". Cortex. 106: 26–35. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.04.011. PMC 6143440. PMID 29864593. Gall’s original list of 26 organs were: the instinct to reproduce; parental love; fidelity; self defense; murder; cunningness; sense of property; pride; ambition and vanity; caution; educational aptness; sense of location; memory; verbal memory; language; color perception; musical talent; arithmetic, counting, and time; mechanical skill; wisdom; metaphysical lucidity; wit, causality, and sense of inference; poetic talent; good-nature, compassion, and moral sense; mimic; and sense of God and religion (Morin, 2014). Gall's list of the "brain organs" was specific. An enlarged organ meant that the patient used that particular " organ" extensively. The number—and more detailed meanings—of organs were added later by other phrenologists. The 27 areas varied in function, from sense of color, to religiosity, to being combative or destructive. Each of the 27 "brain organs" was located under a specific area of the skull. As a phrenologist felt the skull, he would use his knowledge of the shapes of heads and organ positions to determine the overall natural strengths and weaknesses of an individual. Phrenologists believed the head revealed natural tendencies but not absolute limitations or strengths of character. The first phrenological chart gave the names of the organs described by Gall; it was a single sheet, and sold for a cent. Later charts were more expansive. [14] History [ edit ] A definition of phrenology with chart from Webster's Academic Dictionary, c. 1895 Flourens (1844), p.150; Anonymous (1860), pp.249–260; Winn (1879), pp.18–29; Robinson Storer (1866), p.134 The functioning of someone’s moral and intellectual systems depends on their organ and body structure;

Bunge (1985), p.54; Stiles (2012), p.11; Cooter (1990), p.156; Christison-Lagay & Cohen (2013), pp.337–354 Cerebral physiology” was a euphemism for phrenology, a now-discredited pseudo-science. But make no mistake: in its day, phrenology was on the cutting edge of brain science. Since the skull ossifies over the brain during infant development, external craniological means could be used to diagnose the internal states of the mental charactersa b Branson, Susan (2017). "Phrenology and the Science of Race in Antebellum America". Early American Studies. 15 (1): 164–193. ISSN 1543-4273. JSTOR 90000339. Archived from the original on 2022-07-12 . Retrieved 2022-07-12. In the late 18th century, so-called “neurophysiology” was based on the ideas of the Roman doctor Galen of Pergamon, who wrote in the 2nd century. Although these were not universally accepted, there was no theory to replace them (Greenblatt, 1995).

Gall, F. J. (1818). Anatomie et physiologie du système nerveux en général, et du cerveau en particulier (Vol. 3). Librairie Grecque-Latine-Allemande.

Winn, J. M. (1879). "Mind and Living Particles". Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology. 5 (1): 18–29. PMC 5122056. PMID 28906933. Rea, Lisa. "Applying Restorative Justice to the Genocide in Rwanda". Archived from the original on 14 September 2016 . Retrieved 10 June 2012. Bunge, M. (2018). From a Scientific Point of View: Reasoning and Evidence Beat Improvisation across Fields. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar Publishing. p.74. As if more proof were needed to discredit phrenology, Oxford researcher Oiwi Parker Jones and colleagues published findings from a study in the April 2018 issue of the journal Cortex in which they took a modern-day approach to testing These people, according to Combe, were pathologically habitual criminals, moral patients in need of restraint, but not punishment (Lucie, 2007; Morin, 2014).