Why was phrenology popular

The national obsession with head size and shape also infected daily conversation. Though generally considered an insult today, in the past, it was just what most people wanted. Still, the field had many skeptics. From its earliest days in Europe, phrenology faced plenty of criticism, mostly from doctors, scientists, religious leaders, and politicians. Gall soon fled Vienna for France, but there, too, he faced a backlash that threatened his credibility.

His experiments led him to conclude that Gall was wrong: that the brain acted as a whole unit and not as discrete parts. Damage to one area caused other parts to take over and perform the same function. He published his findings in two explosive exposes. In Washington, D.

He argued that brain injuries rarely affected bodily function in the way predicted by phrenology. Moreover, Sewell argued that the brain couldn't possibly be measured from the skull alone. Harvard professor Oliver Wendell Holmes took a similar line of criticism. He compared the skull to a safe that enclosed contents—the brain—unknowable from the outside:. So when a man fumbles about my forehead, and talks about the organs of Individuality, Size, etc. Holmes did not state outright that phrenology was wrong, but rather that there was no way to prove that it was right either, which made its status as a true science questionable.

By the 20th century, phrenology had mostly lost its scientific authority and much of its popular appeal. A few diehards, among them the children and grandchildren of the Fowlers, still practiced.

The progress of medical science offered new and better tools for understanding the brain. To many Americans, phrenology now seemed old-fashioned and ridiculous. From his work in comparative anatomy, Gall knew that the nervous systems in many lower animals consisted essentially of a spinal cord without much of a brain. More sophisticated animals, however, had larger, more developed brains, particularly the cerebral cortex.

From these observations, Gall suggested that the cortex must be the highest-functioning part of the nervous system and that more sophisticated animals developed larger brains. Gall was also the first to make the strong case for the possibility of brain function emerging from spatial organization. In , French surgeon and anthropologist Paul Broca showed that damage to one area of the brain can make a person unable to speak coherently without affecting the ability to understand others.

Pierre Flourens, a French physiologist and surgeon, questioned the movement and discredited it by performing experimental studies. Psychology professionals offering new methods did. In fact, phrenology helped move American psychology forward in various ways. And while there were charlatans, there were phrenologists who truly wanted to help.

For instance, the basis of phrenology was individual faculties, and thereby individual differences. Phrenologists were interested in analyzing and measuring individual differences, like psychologists do today. The environment, including education, played a big role, too. You could improve upon your skills and talents. You — not your genes — had control over your future, and that was a hopeful and exciting notion.

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Credit: Yankner lab, Harvard…. Despite this, phrenology became increasingly popular from the s well into the early s. Gall's ideas gained many followers, but also attracted considerable criticism from scientists as well as other groups. The Catholic church believed that his suggestion of a "religion organ" was atheistic, and by , he was forbidden from lecturing in his home.

After Gall's death in , some of his followers continued to develop phrenology, and references of the theory began seeping into mainstream popular culture. Despite phrenology's brief popularity, it eventually became viewed as pseudoscience like astrology, numerology, and palmistry. Criticism from well-known brain researchers played an important role in this reversal of popular views of phrenology.

During the early- to mids, the renowned French physician Marie Jean Pierre Flourens, a pioneer in brain studies and cerebral localization, found that the fundamental assumption of phrenology—that the contours of the skull corresponded to the underlying shape of the brain—was wrong. In , the French physiologist Francois Magendie summed up his dismissal: "Phrenology, a pseudo-science of the present day; like astrology, necromancy, and alchemy of former times, pretends to localize in the brain the different kinds of memory.

But its efforts are mere assertions, which will not bear examination for an instant. While phrenology has long been identified as a pseudoscience, it did help make important contributions to the field of neurology. Thanks to the focus on phrenology, researchers became more interested in the concept of cortical localization, an idea that suggested that certain mental functions were localized in particular areas of the brain.

While Gall and other phrenologists incorrectly believed that bumps on the head corresponded to personality and abilities, they were correct in believing that different mental abilities were associated with different areas of the brain.

Modern research methods allow scientists to use sophisticated tools such as MRI and PET scans to learn more about the localization of functions within the brain. Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. An empirical, 21st century evaluation of phrenology. Eling P, Finger S. J Hist Behav Sci. Fowler O, Fowler L. New Illustrated Self-instructor in Phrenology and Physiology.

Gall FJ. York University. The 27 faculties of Franz Joseph Gall. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Updated May 1, Levinson S. Return of the living dead: Re-reading Pierre Flourens' contributions to neurophysiology and literature. Prog Brain Res. Magendie F.