Anonymous (1860). "Sir William Hamilton on Phrenology". American Journal of Psychiatry. 16 (3): 249–260. doi: 10.1176/ajp.16.3.249. As in modern neuroscience, Gall believed the white matter was a collection of connection fibers. References 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). Cherry, Kendra. "Why Phrenology Is Now Considered a Pseudoscience." Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 25 Nov. 2018, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-phrenology-2795251. Believing that an individual’s faculties could be modified over the course of a lifetime, Spurzheim modified the strict deterministic view of people and introduced the potential for treatment and change. These traits, however, were still heritable (Morin, 2014). Applications Phrenology in 19th century Britain

a b c Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking". Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. California: Skeptics Society. pp.195–203. After the execution, medical men descended on the corpses. They paid particular attention to the malefactors’ skulls, and the following day’s The Argus explained how “cerebral physiology” had revealed that both were, in effect, natural born killers. 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. Gall, F. J. (1818). Anatomie et physiologie du système nerveux en général, et du cerveau en particulier (Vol. 3). Librairie Grecque-Latine-Allemande.Rawlings III, C. E., & Rossitch Jr, E. (1994). Franz Josef Gall and his contribution to neuroanatomy with emphasis on the brain stem. Surgical neurology, 42(3), 272-275. Differences in the physical and behavioral characteristics of peoples have been noted since antiquity. Records from ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese, and other civilizations remarked upon the distinctions among the languages, customs, and appearance of peoples. However, it was not until the rise of European exploration, conquest, and colonialism that something like the modern concept of “race” begin to take hold. This idea stipulated innate, inherited, unchanging differences, behavioral as well as physical, in human groups. 1 One of the first Europeans to classify humans based on race was the French physician and traveler François Bernier (1620-1688). In 1684, Bernier classified humans into distinct races based on geography. 2 Bernier’s classification was typical of those that followed through the 18 th century, which were based on observations and reports from travelers, missionaries, and colonial officials. These reports often supplied highly ethnocentric descriptions of skin color, temperament, and other features which were used to classify human races. Some of these authors spoke from the authority of their own experience in Africa, Asia, or the Americas, as did Bernier. Other authors relied on their scholarly expertise as naturalists, as did, for example, the Swedish taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1788). 3 All of these early racial classifications were largely the product of written field reports and observations until the late 18 th century and the rise of comparative anatomy.

Instead, their “individual history and characters should be inquired into”, and only the redeemable sent. And, of course, the best way to achieve this was by using phrenology, which would be “an engine of unlimited power” in shaping the reform of criminals. 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 The first publication in the United States in support of phrenology was published by Dr. John Bell, who reissued Combe's essays with an introductory discourse, in 1822. [76] The following year, Dr. John G. Wells of Bowdoin College "commenced an annual exposition, and recommendation of its doctrines, to his class". [76] In 1834, Dr. John D. Godman, professor of anatomy at Rutgers Medical College, emphatically defended phrenology when he wrote: [77] With this most phrenologists concurred: however underdeveloped a mental organ was, the criminal still possessed the ability to make a moral decision. But what phrenology also offered was the potential to sort the wheat from the chaff — most phrenologists agreed that some criminals were born bad, while others were made bad by life circumstances. Some scepticismIn 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). Combe, George (1851). A System of Phrenology. Boston: Benjamin B. Mussey and Company. Archived from the original on 2023-02-05 . Retrieved 2012-06-10. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images A phrenology chart from 1859, mapping out the various "faculties" of the brain.

In the second-last article in our series Biology and Blame, James Bradley details some interesting facts about this pseudo-science. 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.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. It is, however, allowable to take as a principle, that there will be a relation betwixt vigour of intellect and perfection of form; and that, therefore, history will direct us to the original and chief family of mankind. We therefore ask, which are the nations that have excelled and figured in history, not only as conquerors, but as forwarding, by their improvements in arts and sciences, the progress of human knowledge?