Statistics of phrenology : being a sketch of the progress and present state of that science in the British Islands.

  • Hewett Watson
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statistics of phrenology : being a sketch of the progress and present state of that science in the British Islands. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    SO gradually, indeed, has the science spread, that for one person wlio now possesses a competent knowledge of I'hrenology liundreds or thousands have never heard it mentioned, and tens of thousands know it by name only. The very rapidity with which the science has advanced in the hands of a few individuals may be regarded as one of the main drawbacks to its diffusion ; the discoveries of phrenologists, and their attempted applications of those discoveries, having been made at a much quicker pace than the slowly moving mind of the public could at all keep up with. Phrenology- has been taught in Britain scarcely more than twenty years ; and already its support- ers talk about entire changes and reforms in the moral world, to be founded on its principles, and to be built up by its diffusion. At the same time their opponents are asserting the whole system to be doAvnright infatuation, and reasonably enough — the truth of their assertion being admitted — are predicting its speedy dissolution. To this prophecy the phrenologists retort, thattheir science, being an exposition of the facts of nature, cannot dissolve and die ; and that so far from exhibiting any symptoms of fatal disease or superannuation, it is now spreading rapidly and widely through civilised nations. The correctness of this vaunt will be in some measure tested by the present historical sketch and the statistical details intended to follow. About the year 1796, Gall began openly to teach his discoveries, upon which the science of ])hrenology has been since founded ; but their first rudimentary existence dates back thirty years previous. At this time the vhole dis- coveries were little more than the coincidences of particular local protuberances of the cranium v ith jiarticular dispos- itions or talents. It was several years later that the united abilities of Gall and Spurzhcim — more especiallv thelatter— systematised their disc()v«nes into a connected outline of the science as now know n. Dr. Bostock has
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