Phrenology
“By revealing the nature, number and origin of the human faculties, the conditions of their operations, their mutual influence, their modes of acting, and the natural laws by which their manifestations are regulated, phrenology has assisted to elucidate and more fully to establish the correct system of moral treatment of the insane, than any and all former systems of mental science.”
Horace A. Buttolph, 1849
“By revealing the nature, number and origin of the human faculties, the conditions of their operations, their mutual influence, their modes of acting, and the natural laws by which their manifestations are regulated, phrenology has assisted to elucidate and more fully to establish the correct system of moral treatment of the insane, than any and all former systems of mental science.”
Horace A. Buttolph, 1849
The humanitarian efforts of men like Philippe Pinel would have been difficult, if not impossible, without some scientific rationale for the curability of insanity. Phrenology, known by nineteenth century physicians as the “true science of the mind,” became that justification when it was developed in 1796 by the German physician Franz Joseph Gall.
As a science of the mind, phrenology divided the brain into two distinct parts; the mind and the intellect. The mind represented the spiritual portion of a person while the intellect represented the physical brain. When a person went insane it was their intellect that was diseased. In order to treat the intellect physicians had to identify precisely which of the thirty to fifty faculties or characteristics was affected by insanity. Prominent faculties, such as anger or excitement, were identifiable by bumps on a person's head and could be matched to official phrenological charts, busts, or labeled skulls. Phrenology allowed physicians to treat their patient’s diseased faculties from the outside while relying on the patient’s inherent sanity to work a cure from the inside.
As a science of the mind, phrenology divided the brain into two distinct parts; the mind and the intellect. The mind represented the spiritual portion of a person while the intellect represented the physical brain. When a person went insane it was their intellect that was diseased. In order to treat the intellect physicians had to identify precisely which of the thirty to fifty faculties or characteristics was affected by insanity. Prominent faculties, such as anger or excitement, were identifiable by bumps on a person's head and could be matched to official phrenological charts, busts, or labeled skulls. Phrenology allowed physicians to treat their patient’s diseased faculties from the outside while relying on the patient’s inherent sanity to work a cure from the inside.