Phrenology and physiognomy

• “You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes. I had hardly expected so

dolichocephalic a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital development.
Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your parietal
fissure? A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an
ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be
fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.”
• Dr. Mortimer, chapter 1
 Phrenology
• Phrenology is a pseudomedicine primarily focused on measurements of the human
skull, 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 center for phrenology was Edinburgh,
where the Edinburgh Phrenological Society was established in 1820.
• Although now regarded as an obsolete amalgamation of primitive neuroanatomy
with moral philosophy, phrenological thinking was influential in 19th-century
psychiatry. Gall's assumption that character, thoughts, and emotions are located in
specific parts of the brain is considered an important historical advance toward
neuropsychology
 Phrenology
• Phrenologists believe that the human mind has a set of various mental faculties, each one
represented in a different area of the brain.
• These areas were said to be proportional to a person's propensities. The importance of an
organ was derived from relative size compared to other organs. It was believed that the
cranial skull—like a glove on the hand—accommodates to the different sizes of these areas
of the brain, so that a person's capacity for a given personality trait could be determined
simply by measuring the area of the skull that overlies the corresponding area of the brain.
• Phrenology, which focuses on personality and character, is distinct from craniometry, which
is the study of skull size, weight and shape, and physiognomy, the study of facial features.
• Franz Joseph 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
Phrenology
Phrenology
Phrenology
 physiognomy
• Physiognomy is the assessment of a person's character or personality from his or
her outer appearance, especially the face.
• The practice was well accepted by the ancient Greek philosophers, but fell into
disrepute in the Middle Ages when practiced by vagabonds and mountebanks. It
was then revived and popularized by Johann Kaspar Lavater before falling from
favour again in the late 19th century. Physiognomy as understood in the past meets
the contemporary definition of a pseudoscience.
• No clear evidence indicates physiognomy works, though recent studies have
suggested that facial appearances do "contain a kernel of truth" about a person's
personality.
• Physiognomy was regarded by those who cultivated it both as a mode of
discriminating character by the outward appearance and as a method of divination
from form and feature.
physiognomy
physiognomy
 Analyze yourself with physiognomy!

• For this activity, we’re going to explore how a physiognomist would analyze facial feature
to get an idea of someone’s personality.
• You can either do this individually with a mirror, or do this with a partner of your
choosing.
• Once you have determined how and with whom you’d like to work, I’m going to pass out a
few papers. Two will have pictures of different types of facial features to compare to your
own. The third paper is where you can determine and record yours or your partners
features and corresponding personality traits.