By James Aitchison

They called phrenology a science, but it was pure quackery, a pseudoscience that tragically labelled thousands of innocent people as criminals or mentally defective.

By running their hands over a person’s skull and judging its shape and size, phrenologists believed they could determine someone’s character, thoughts, and propensity to commit crime.

By measuring the enlargements or indentations on an individual’s skull, phrenologists could positively state that Citizen A was a likely murderer while Citizen B possessed a fine, upstanding character.

Nowadays, phrenology smacks of medieval skulduggery, but two hundred years ago it commanded serious scientific respect.  Phrenologists argued that the brain was composed of different muscles.  Those used more often were bigger, resulting in different skull shapes.  Brain muscles used less frequently remained smaller and were not present on the exterior of the skull.

German physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) pioneered the idea of measuring the contours of the skull to indicate personality traits.  His work was popularised by his assistant Johann Kaspar Spurzheim (1776-1832) and Scottish lawyer and phrenology advocate George Combe (1788-1858), who lectured in Europe and the United States.  

Gall’s methodology was specious in the extreme.  He stated that the brain was the organ of the mind, and mental powers could be divided into a number of independent faculties.  These faculties, he argued, were located in specific regions of the brain; the size of each region — measured in terms of lumps, bumps and indentations on the outer surface of the head — let an expert phrenologist observe all manner of character traits.  And, by conducting studies on prisoners and inmates of lunatic asylums, Gall believed he could measure the mental organs necessary for murder and theft.  His principal work was titled The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular, with Observations upon the possibility of ascertaining the several Intellectual and Moral Dispositions of Man and Animal by the configuration of their Heads.

Enter Spurzheim and Combe.  They gleefully divided the skull into patches locating such aspects of character as concentration, memory, destructiveness, self-esteem, benevolence, veneration, wonder, wit, and even metaphysical spirit.  Small wonder that the motto of the American Phrenology Association was Know thyself.  (As if …)

Combe’s phrenology book sold 200,000 copies mainly to middle and working-class readers.  No less than Queen Victoria and Prince Albert invited him to read the heads of their children.  (The results remain a secret to this day!)

Phrenology societies sprang up everywhere.  Some scientists believed phrenology confirmed European superiority over other races, while others demonstrated that women were natural carers of children because their heads were larger at the back and their foreheads lower. 

Significantly, the faux biological science ultimately led to some positive social advances.  It encouraged the rehabilitation of criminals (through “reorganisation” of their brains), while paving the way for serious physical anthropology, forensic medicine and applied psychology.

By 1840, phrenology was thoroughly discredited in scientific circles.  The fact that it continued acquiring followers well into the twentieth century is proof that many people do in fact need to get their heads read.