Gall Spurzheim And The Phrenological Movement

Author : Paul Eling,Stanley Finger
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2021-05-11
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781000388381

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Gall, Spurzheim, and the Phrenological Movement by Paul Eling,Stanley Finger Pdf

During the 1790s in Vienna, German physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) came forth with a new doctrine dealing with mind, brain and behavior—one that could account for individual differences. He maintained that there are many independent faculties of mind, each associated with a separate part of the brain. He fine-tuned his ideas and published two sets of books presenting them after he and his assistant, Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, settled in Paris in 1807. Gall's ideas had many supporters but were controversial and unsettling to others. In particular, the opposition ridiculed his belief that skull features reflect the growth of specific, underlying cortical organs, and hence correlate with personality traits (i.e., his ‘bumpology’). Gall’s fundamental ideas about the mind and organization of the brain were debated across the globe, and they also began to be exploited by unscrupulous businessmen, ‘professors’ who ‘read skulls’ for a living. But, as some historians have shown, his ideas about mind, brain and behavior led to the modern neurosciences. The chapters collected in this volume provide new insights into Gall’s thinking and what Spurzheim did, and the faddish movement called ‘phrenology’, which originated as a science of humankind but became a popular source of entertainment. All chapters were originally published in various issues of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences.

Author : Stanley Finger,Paul Eling
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 585 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780190464622

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Franz Joseph Gall by Stanley Finger,Paul Eling Pdf

Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) was always a controversial figure, as was his doctrine, later called phrenology. Although often portrayed as a discredited buffoon, who believed he could assess a person's strengths and weaknesses by measuring cranial bumps, he was, in fact, a serious physician-scientist, who strove to answer timely questions about the mind, brain, and behavior. In many ways a remarkable visionary, his seminal ideas would become tenets of modern behavioral neuroscience. Among other things, he was the first scientist to promote publicly the idea of specialized cortical areas for diverse higher functions, while taking metaphysics out of his new science of mind. Moreover, although he obviously placed too much emphasis on "tell-tale" skull features (mistakenly believing that the cranium faithfully reflects the features of underlying brain areas), he fully understood the strength of "convergent operations," conducting neuroanatomical, developmental, cross-species, gender-comparison, and brain-damage studies on both humans and animals in his attempts to unravel the mysteries of brain organization. Rather than looking upon Gall's "organology" as one of science's great mistakes, this book provides a fresh look at the man and his doctrine. The authors delve into his motives, what was known about the brain during the 1790s, and the cultural demands of his time. Gall is rightfully presented as an early-19th-century biologist, anthropologist, philosopher, and physician with an inquisitive mind and a challenging agenda--namely, how to account for species and individual differences in behavior. In this well-researched book, readers learn why, starting as a young physician in Vienna and continuing his life's work in Paris, he chose to study the mind and the brain, why he employed his various methods, why he relied so heavily on cranial features, and why he wrote what he did in his books. Frequently using Gall's own words, they show his impact in various domains, including his approach to the insane and criminals, before concluding with his final illness and more lasting legacy.

Author : Johann Gaspar Spurzheim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 120 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 1827
Category : Phrenology
ISBN : NLS:B900063459

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Outlines of Phrenology by Johann Gaspar Spurzheim Pdf

Author : Alan Richardson
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2001-07-26
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781139428514

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British Romanticism and the Science of the Mind by Alan Richardson Pdf

In this provocative and original study, Alan Richardson examines an entire range of intellectual, cultural, and ideological points of contact between British Romantic literary writing and the pioneering brain science of the time. Richardson breaks new ground in two fields, revealing a significant and undervalued facet of British Romanticism while demonstrating the 'Romantic' character of early neuroscience. Crucial notions like the active mind, organicism, the unconscious, the fragmented subject, instinct and intuition, arising simultaneously within the literature and psychology of the era, take on unsuspected valences that transform conventional accounts of Romantic cultural history. Neglected issues like the corporeality of mind, the role of non-linguistic communication, and the peculiarly Romantic understanding of cultural universals are reopened in discussions that bring new light to bear on long-standing critical puzzles, from Coleridge's suppression of 'Kubla Khan', to Wordsworth's perplexing theory of poetic language, to Austen's interest in head injury.

Author : Stephen Tomlinson
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2013-06-28
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780817357634

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Head Masters by Stephen Tomlinson Pdf

Contributes to a better understanding of Horace Mann and the educational reform movement he advanced Head Masters challenges the assumption that phrenology—the study of the conformation of the skull as it relates to mental faculties and character—played only a minor and somewhat anecdotal role in the development of education. Stephen Tomlinson asserts instead that phrenology was a scientifically respectable theory of human nature, perhaps the first solid physiological psychology. He shows that the first phrenologists were among the most prominent scientists and intellectuals of their day, and that the concept was eagerly embraced by leading members of the New England medical community. Following its progression from European theorists Franz-Joseph Gall, Johan Gasper Spurzheim, and George Combe to Americans Horace Mann and Samuel Gridley Howe, Tomlinson traces the origins of phrenological theory and examines how its basic principles of human classification, inheritance, and development provided a foundation for the progressive practices advocated by middle-class reformers such as Combe and Mann. He also elucidates the ways in which class, race, and gender stereotypes permeated 19th century thought and how popular views of nature, mind, and society supported a secular curriculum favoring the use of disciplinary practices based on physiology. This study ultimately offers a reconsideration of the ideas and theories that motivated education reformers such as Mann and Howe, and a reassessment of Combe, who, though hardly known by contemporary scholars, emerges as one of the most important and influential educators of the 19th century.

Author : James Poskett
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 382 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2022-02-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9780226820644

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Materials of the Mind by James Poskett Pdf

Phrenology was the most popular mental science of the Victorian age. From American senators to Indian social reformers, this new mental science found supporters stretching around the globe. Materials of the Mind tells the story of how phrenology changed the world--and how the world changed phrenology. This is a story of skulls from the Arctic, plaster casts from Haiti, books from Bengal, and letters from the Pacific. Drawing on far-flung museum and archival collections, and addressing sources in six different languages, Materials of the Mind is the first substantial account of science in the nineteenth century as part of global history. It shows how the circulation of material culture underpinned the emergence of a new materialist philosophy of the mind, while also demonstrating how a global approach to history could help us reassess issues such as race, technology, and politics today.

Author : Courtney E. Thompson
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 151 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2021-02-12
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9781978813083

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An Organ of Murder by Courtney E. Thompson Pdf

Finalist for the 2022 Cheiron Book Prize​ An Organ of Murder explores the origins of both popular and elite theories of criminality in the nineteenth-century United States, focusing in particular on the influence of phrenology. In the United States, phrenology shaped the production of medico-legal knowledge around crime, the treatment of the criminal within prisons and in public discourse, and sociocultural expectations about the causes of crime. The criminal was phrenology’s ideal research and demonstration subject, and the courtroom and the prison were essential spaces for the staging of scientific expertise. In particular, phrenology constructed ways of looking as well as a language for identifying, understanding, and analyzing criminals and their actions. This work traces the long-lasting influence of phrenological visual culture and language in American culture, law, and medicine, as well as the practical uses of phrenology in courts, prisons, and daily life.

Author : David C. Lindberg,Theodore M. Porter,Roy Porter,Ronald L. Numbers,Dorothy Ross
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 802 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2003-08-04
Category : Science
ISBN : 0521594421

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The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 7, The Modern Social Sciences by David C. Lindberg,Theodore M. Porter,Roy Porter,Ronald L. Numbers,Dorothy Ross Pdf

An account of the history of the social sciences since the late eighteenth century.

Author : Andrew P. Wickens
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 405 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2014-12-08
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781317744832

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A History of the Brain by Andrew P. Wickens Pdf

A History of the Brain tells the full story of neuroscience, from antiquity to the present day. It describes how we have come to understand the biological nature of the brain, beginning in prehistoric times, and progressing to the twentieth century with the development of Modern Neuroscience. This is the first time a history of the brain has been written in a narrative way, emphasizing how our understanding of the brain and nervous system has developed over time, with the development of the disciplines of anatomy, pharmacology, physiology, psychology and neurosurgery. The book covers: beliefs about the brain in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome the Medieval period, Renaissance and Enlightenment the nineteenth century the most important advances in the twentieth century and future directions in neuroscience. The discoveries leading to the development of modern neuroscience gave rise to one of the most exciting and fascinating stories in the whole of science. Written for readers with no prior knowledge of the brain or history, the book will delight students, and will also be of great interest to researchers and lecturers with an interest in understanding how we have arrived at our present knowledge of the brain.

Author : Stanley Finger
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 365 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2023-04-06
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781009301305

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Mark Twain, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the Head Readers by Stanley Finger Pdf

Having a phrenological 'head reading' was one of the most significant fads of the nineteenth century – a means for better knowing oneself and a guide for self-improvement. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) had a lifelong yet long overlooked interest in phrenology, the pseudoscience claiming to correlate skull features with specialized brain areas and higher mental traits. Twain's books are laced with phrenological terms and concepts, and he lampooned the head readers in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He was influenced by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who also used his humor to assail head readers and educate the public. Finger shows that both humorists accepted certain features of phrenology, but not their skull-based ideas. By examining a fascinating topic at the intersection of literature and the history of neuroscience, this engaging study will appeal to readers interested in phrenology, science, medicine, American history, and the lives and works of Twain and Holmes.

Author : William Hughes
Publisher : Manchester University Press
Page : 189 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2022-03-29
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781526143747

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The dome of thought by William Hughes Pdf

The dome of thought is the first study of phrenology based primarily on the popular – rather than medical – appreciation of this important and controversial pseudoscience. With detailed reference to the reports printed in popular newspapers from the early years of the nineteenth century to the fin de siècle, the book provides an unequalled insight into the Victorian public’s understanding of the techniques, assumptions and implications of defining a person’s character by way of the bumps on their skull. Highly relevant to the study of the many authors – Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot, among them – whose fiction was informed by the imagery of phrenology, The dome of thought will prove an essential resource for anybody with an interest in the popular and literary culture of the nineteenth century, including literary scholars, medical historians and the general reader.

Author : George Combe
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 1839
Category : Phrenology
ISBN : HARVARD:HWS66L

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Lectures on Phrenology by George Combe Pdf

Author : George Combe
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 480 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 1880
Category : Human beings
ISBN : PRNC:32101064485376

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The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects by George Combe Pdf

Author : Robert M. Brain,Robert S. Cohen,Ole Knudsen
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 454 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2007-09-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781402029875

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Hans Christian Ørsted and the Romantic Legacy in Science by Robert M. Brain,Robert S. Cohen,Ole Knudsen Pdf

This fascinating text is an exploration of the relationship between science and philosophy in the early nineteenth century. This subject remains one of the most misunderstood topics in modern European intellectual history. By taking the brilliant career of Danish physicist-philosopher Hans Christian Ørsted as their organizing theme, leading international philosophers and historians of science reveal illuminating new perspectives on the intellectual map of Europe in the age of revolution and romanticism.

Author : Edwin Clarke,Kenneth Dewhurst,Michael Jeffrey Aminoff
Publisher : Norman Publishing
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Brain
ISBN : 093040565X

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An Illustrated History of Brain Function by Edwin Clarke,Kenneth Dewhurst,Michael Jeffrey Aminoff Pdf