Phrenology
As a Cancer, my interactions with astrologists often come with statements regarding my attention, affection, or accusations of pure laziness. While the infatuation with astrology is not a recent craze, it does have a forefather in phrenology: a pseudo-science that had its own audience in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Phrenology is an obsolete science centered around the study of the shape of a person’s skull and its connection with mental faculties and traits. The practice was started by German doctor Franz Joseph Gall, who examined the heads of various people to ascertain distinctive features that would indicate characteristic traits such as friendliness, conscientiousness, and creativity.
Dr. Gall was one of the first doctors to theorize that 27 specific regions of the brain (later phrenologists would add to this number) contained certain mental functions, giving a lecture in Vienna in 1802 he offended both local religious leaders and officials as it assumed an individual's moral character could be physically determined. Soon afterwards he began touring the German states with Johann Spurzheim, giving lectures on his findings with mixed reactions from his audience. Spurzheim split from Gall, reshaping ideas about phrenology, before Gall died in France in 1828.
In 1848 Jean-Pierre-Marie Flourens would largely discredit this movement among physiologists, but phrenology gained a foothold with the masses. Most notably, the movement combined with American views on race throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries as people used it to support claims of black inferiority to whites.
In Wells’ New Descriptive Chart for Giving a Delineation of Character According to Phrenology and Physiognomy; For the Use of Practical Phrenologists by L.N. Fowler and Company, London in 1895, the publishers link a person’s character with the shape of certain portions of the head. These portions are split into 34 different groups linked to physiological and mental conditions that affect the examinee. In this case, the examinee was William Williamson, a South Dakota congressional representative in the 1920s, who was inspected on October 24th, 1901 by Mr. Morris. The first three pages provide a run-down of the 34 groups and what size (2-7) Williamson had for these regions. The fourth page outlines characteristics that the patient should look for in an appropriate partner including their weight, skull size, personality, etc.
The fifth page of the book suggests jobs that the patient should pursue and how strongly suited they are to them. For Williamson, the examiner suggested jobs in the commercial, literary, or oratory field. I think most readers would recall taking tests in high school which ended with guidance counselors outlining career paths that the student should pursue based on their scores. In this case, one’s path is suggested based on their skull rather than a personality/intelligence test.
The middle of the book is devoted to breaking down how the measurements reflect aspects of the individual’s character. For William Williamson in 1901, the results were quite glowing. The examiner noted him as being temperate, humble, and religious.
One of these interesting characteristics can be seen on page 25, under “22.-Bibativeness" or a love for drinking water. Phrenology illustrates this hydrophilia to the patient's upper left side of the brain as seen in figure two. A large lump indicates a hydrophilic leaning that manifests in a love of swimming, bathing, and drinking. The pamphlet warns that this portion of the brain also correlates with alcoholism and advises the reader on restraining their impulses. The inverse of this enlargement indicates an aversion to water, avoiding it whenever possible with the pamphlet advising their reader to cultivate their instincts. Williamson was rated in the middle at a 5. Other characteristics include Spirituality, Combativeness, Individuality, and Hope.
By the mid-20th Century, the practice of phrenology was largely dismissed by the public. The movement relied heavily on visual clues to judge mental characteristics and struggled to support itself in the face of physiologists who promoted more evidence-based sciences. While it's unknown why William Williamson chose to have a phrenology test done on himself (whether for the oddity of it or because he believed in it), the reader is left with an interesting pseudo-science pamphlet.
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