Phrenology- a Victorian obsession?

Phrenology Chart

In 1824, George Combe’s ‘Elements of Phrenology’ was published.

Phrenology was the identification of an individual’s faculties by feeling the shape of the skull.

It was argued by Franz Joseph Gall, an Austrian physician, along with Johann Spurzheim that mind and brain were connected, in a way that, different characteristics of mind, would give different shapes to the surface of the brain and that the shape of the brain imposed itself on the skull.

Once these characteristics had been discovered then the environment could be altered to the individual, this could be done in schools and asylums.

The ‘science’ of phrenology was supported and followed by many leading medical pioneers and in particular medical superintendents of lunatic asylums

It became hugely fashionable and who knows how many peoples lives changed course because of ‘phrenological readings’!

Intriguing connections

    • Your ancestors may have been asked by their employers to have an assessment by a phrenologist to discover more about their character and suitability for the job they did
    • John Stuart Mill in 1843 spoke out against phrenology, calling it ‘untenable’
    • Fiction and non fiction works written at the time often described or used the language of phrenology, examples can be found in Charles Dickens ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘David Copperfield’

 

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