So What Is Phrenology?
Lunatic or Criminal? Genius or Gentleman? How the shape of the head was used to predict the direction of your life.
During the Nineteenth Century, among certain circles, a great deal of attention was given to the science of Phrenology. According to its founder, Austrian doctor François Joseph Gall, particular significance could be attached to the shape of the head: differing shapes, bulges, and areas of over or under-development being of particular importance in understanding the character of the individual. John Taylor, a lecturer on Phrenology and member of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society, wrote a guide called Phrenology Simplified in 1841 and claimed, definitively, that it was a science “founded on truth”, for which the incontrovertible evidence was “the growing number of adherents.” By the turn of the Twentieth Century, the publication of one of Drane’s well-known handbooks The ABC of Phrenology (priced at just one shilling) gave one R. Dimsdale Stocker authorial privilege to enable “the careful student to ‘read’ our fellows’ character aright.”
So popular was phrenology that societies were formed, conference proceedings held, papers written, and far-reaching judgments on individuals made. A laudatory biography of Dr. Gall also advertises an anniversary meeting in 1896 at which Miss Jessie A…
