Phrenology :: essays research papers

Phrenology is basically the study of personality through the study of the shape of the skull. The basis of this theory is that the brain con works to the shape of the head and its contours. This pseudoscience says that because we have isolated where unalike parts of personality come from we can tell how dominant this trait would be in a persons life by the coat of the piece of the brain. We have since proven that this theory is not true. Franz Joseph incrustation is considered to be the founder of the direct scientific link between the morphology of the skull and personality traits. Gall was one of the first scientists to consider the brain the home of all mental activities. His main work was called The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular. In this article he put forth five points that phrenology was based on in general. 1. That moral and intellectual faculties and innate.2. That their exercise or manifestation depends on organiz ation.3. That the brain is an organ of all the propensities, sentiments, and faculties.4. The brain is composed of many particular organs as there are different propensities, sentiments, and faculties which differ from one another. 5. That the form of the head or cranium represents the form of the brain, and thus represents the relative development of the brain organs.Gall linked the faculties with precise brain localizations through careful reflection and expensive experimental measures. Johann Spurzheims contribution to phrenology was as well as great. He helped Gall in a study of brain injuries with the phrenology concept Gall had created. He also studied many cases of aphasia following victims cranial injuries in battle. In 1832, he arrived in America, which was at that time desperate for insight into military man personality, and started on a lecture circuit that eventually killed him only six months into it. While Spurzheim was in America he managed to inspire two young, fr ustrated evangelists whose name calling were Lorenzo Niles Fowler and Orson S. Fowler. These two are largely responsible for spreading phrenology throughout the country. They traveled from town to town carrying the truth of phrenology. They offered lectures, readings, and to evaluate the charteristics of total strangers through the bumps and valleys on their heads. in brief everyone from small-town folk to the rich and famous were getting readings. It became a fad throughout America.