Phrenology

Phrenology is a pseudoscience which involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits. It is based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules. Although both of those ideas have a basis in reality, phrenology extrapolated beyond empirical knowledge in a way that departed from science. Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796, the discipline was very popular in the 19th century, especially from about 1810 until 1840. The principal British centre for phrenology was Edinburgh, where the Edinburgh Phrenological Society was established in 1820.

History[edit | edit source]

Phrenology was introduced by Franz Joseph Gall, a German physician, in the late 18th century. Gall believed that the brain was made up of 27 individual organs that determined personality, the first 19 of these 'organs' he believed to exist in other animal species. Phrenologists would run their fingertips and palms over the skulls of their patients to feel for enlargements or indentations. The phrenologist would often take measurements with a tape measure of the overall head size and more rarely employ a craniometer, a special version of a caliper.

Criticism and legacy[edit | edit source]

Phrenology was widely discredited as a scientific theory by the mid-19th century. The main criticism of phrenology is that researchers were often biased in their research, seeing what they wanted to see, or even changing the data to fit their theories. Despite its lack of scientific credibility, phrenology has had a lasting impact on neuroscience. It was a precursor to the modern understanding of brain localization, which is the idea that different brain areas do different things.

References[edit | edit source]

Phrenology Resources
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