12" Ceramic Phrenology Head

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These fundamental faculties are mapped out on drawings and three-dimensional ball-headed busts that have become the iconic image for phrenology. Each faculty corresponded with a particular part of the brain. Here is just a sample of the traits mapped out by phrenology (you can see the entire list here). As in modern neuroscience, Gall believed the white matter was a collection of connection fibers. References

Young believed that Gall was “extremely predisposed” to see a coronal prominence or large cerebral organ when he already had evidence of behavior.

Color Antique Phrenology Head Diagram

Craniology is the study of the skull. In the last few hundred years, craniological methods, like measuring the angle of the face, the size of the braincase, or the ratio of the length to the breadth of the head, have been used to classify people into racial groupings, to make claims about alleged differences in intelligence, and to study human variation. The study of medicine, anatomy, and art were all important to the development of craniology. Furthermore, craniology’s association with “race science” gave it widespread influence through the early 20 th century and closely connected craniology to the development of physical anthropology. Illustration of facial angles of humans, apes, and monkeys from Camper (1791). Monogenists, including Blumenbach, Friedrich Tiedemann (1781-1861), and James Cowles Pritchard (1786-1848), relied upon the impact of differing environments to explain human differences. Except for the philosopher and critic of phrenology Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856), who filled skulls with sand to measure their volume, it was Tiedemann who first, in 1836, made systematic racial comparison of the size of the interior of the braincase. 18 By filling braincases with millet then measuring the difference between the weight of the filled and emptied skull, Tiedemann estimated brain size by weight. After measuring over 400 hundred crania from different races (using Blumenbach’s categories), Tiedemann concluded that the large overlap in brain measurements among the races suggested monogenism, and provided a scientific basis for ending the slave trade. 19 In 1809 Gall began writing his principal [21] work, The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular, with Observations upon the possibility of ascertaining the several Intellectual and Moral Dispositions of Man and Animal, by the configuration of their Heads. It was not published until 1819. In the introduction to this main work, Gall makes the following statement in regard to his doctrinal principles, which comprise the intellectual basis of phrenology: [22]

During the 1930s, Belgian colonial authorities in Rwanda used phrenology to explain the purported superiority of Tutsis over Hutus. [49] Application [ edit ] 1848 edition of American Phrenological Journal published by Fowlers & Wells, New York Racism [ edit ] While these people possessed strong criminal impulses, they were still responsible for their criminal acts. Finally, the third class of people consisted of people who possessed large organs of lower propensities and small moral and intellectual organs. So too were the medical men who dissected the bodies of executed criminals. Like Bradley and O’Connor’s, dissections involved a minute examination of the internal structures of the brain, combined with a more general analysis of the bumps and depressions of the skull; all as part of the search to establish brain-based criminality. Phrenology is the study of personality traits, talents, and mental abilities as a consequence of skull curvature.The idea that one's skull could give hints to someone's intelligence and personality first popped into the mind of German physician Franz Joseph Gall in the late 1700s, when he was a medical student. Gall noticed that classmates with larger eyes and more expansive foreheads seemed more adept at memorizing long passages. This, he surmised, suggested that one's emotional characteristics were not dictated by the heart, as was assumed at the time, but from somewhere in the head. The Viennese physiologist Franz Joseph Gall invented phrenology in the late 18th century. His student, Spurzheim, and Spurzheim’s student, Combe, would alter and popularize phrenology throughout Europe and the United States. Public Domain A skull featured in Morton's Crania Americana, in which Morton pointed out alleged differences between skulls from various races. His conclusions were used by some, including phrenologists, to justify white supremacy. Here … we have a person with all the passions and appetites of full-grown man, and controlling intellect of an average child — in fact a criminal idiot. Some scientists believed phrenology affirmed European superiority over other races. By comparing skulls of different ethnic groups it was thought to allow for ranking of races from least to most evolved. Broussais, a disciple of Gall, proclaimed that the Caucasians were the most beautiful, while peoples like the Australian Aboriginal and Māori would never become civilized since "they had no cerebral organ for producing great artists". [50] Few phrenologists argued for the emancipation of the slaves, while many used it to advocate for slavery. [51] Instead they argued that through education and interbreeding the "lesser peoples" could improve. [52] Another argument was that the natural inequality of people could be used to situate them in the most appropriate place in society. [51] Gender stereotyping [ edit ]

These people, according to Combe, had free will and ought to be punished for their criminal acts. The second class of people had organs that were all large but equal in their largeness. While someone said to be destructive would have prominence on the skull surrounding the top of their ear (Morin, 2014). Phrenological teachings had become a widespread popular movement by 1834, when Combe came to lecture in the United States. [78] Sensing commercial possibilities men like the Fowlers became phrenologists and sought additional ways to bring phrenology to the masses. [79] Though a popular movement, the intellectual elite of the United States found phrenology attractive because it provided a biological explanation of mental processes based on observation, yet it was not accepted uncritically. Some intellectuals accepted organology while questioning cranioscopy. [80] Gradually the popular success of phrenology undermined its scientific merits in the United States and elsewhere, along with its materialistic underpinnings, fostering radical religious views. There was increasing evidence to refute phrenological claims, and by the 1840s it had largely lost its credibility. [66] In the United States, especially in the South, phrenology faced an additional obstacle in the antislavery movement. While phrenologists usually claimed the superiority of the European race, they were often sympathetic to liberal causes including the antislavery movement; this sowed skepticism about phrenology among those who were pro-slavery. [81] The rise and surge in popularity in mesmerism, phrenomesmerism, also had a hand in the loss of interest in phrenology among intellectuals and the general public. [39] [82] Specific phrenological modules [ edit ] In the gallery above, look through some vintage phrenology charts and diagrams from Louis Allen Vaught's 1902 phrenology handbook Vaught's Practical Character Reader. Though phrenology has been debunked, it's fascinating to see what people once thought certain skull shapes could tell us about someone's loyalty, masculinity, honesty, and more.

Abstract

HoF (2014-09-11). "Hell on Wheels Season Three-A bizarro-world version of the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad.» historyonfilm.com". historyonfilm.com. Archived from the original on 2019-07-23 . Retrieved 2019-07-23.

Simpson, D. (2005). Phrenology and the neurosciences: contributions of FJ Gall and JG Spurzhei m. ANZ journal of surgery, 75(6), 475-482.

Black and White Vintage Phrenology Head

Parssinen, T. M. (Autumn 1974). "Popular Science and Society: The Phrenology Movement in Early Victorian Britain". Journal of Social History. 8 (1): 1–20. doi: 10.1353/jsh/8.1.1. JSTOR 3786523. PMID 11632363. Phrenology is something DeYoung calls "interesting from a historical perspective," but in practice, it's riddled with problems. "First, the idea that the shape of the outside of the skull has anything to do with the shape of the brain, well it doesn't," he says. "Beyond that, their map of what the different parts of the brain are doing, that's all made up. There's nothing meaningful to it." Ultimately, criminal phrenology would serve as the foundation for the development of the positivist biological school of criminology. Phrenology intrigued people from all walks of life. The middle and working classes were consumed with the idea of that this kind of scientific knowledge was power. Even Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were curious enough to have the heads of their children read. In 1832, Spurzheim landed on American soil with the same plan of spreading interest in phrenology, but three months later literally worked himself to death. It proved to be plenty of time to gin up the support of the entrepreneurial Fowler brothers (Orson Squire and Lorenzo Niles Fowler) and their business associate Samuel Roberts Wells.