The Lumpier the Head the Better

In keeping with my recent blog entry on cupping I have turned my eye to another piece of idiot barbarism masquerading as medicine, specifically; phrenology.  Phrenology is one of those things that managed to sound so sensible at the time that it was quite a while before anyone realised how utterly stupid it was.  Similarly the sensible sounding bits (once stripped of the associated rubbish) proved to be an important step forward in understanding brain function.

Phrenology posits that various mental and personality attributes were controlled by different parts of the brain.  This was quite a forward thinking attitude at the time and an important step forward in the understanding of how the brain operates.  Unfortunately for the reputation of its practitioners phrenology didn't stop there.  It claimed that the various parts of the brain that were most used would naturally enlarge and that those least used would diminish, it further claimed that the skull fitted the brain like a glove moulding itself to every little irregularity.  Thus a person's personality could be determined by an (appropriately trained) practitioner running their fingers over the scalp and feeling for the little bumps (enhanced brain activity) and depressions (less brain activity) that would indicate what the brain was getting up to underneath.

At this point you can be forgiven for thinking that nobody had ever taken off the top of a human skull to see what things looked like underneath but this isn't true as we know that trepanning had been around for millennia before anybody tried phrenology.  Still if human history has proved anything it is that an idea doesn't have to make sense for people to adopt it.  For several decades in the nineteenth  century phrenology was quite the thing and was used to justify (among other things) racism and attempts to rehabilitate criminals.

Of course it couldn't last.  Eventually scientifically minded men took time out from feeling the head bumps of criminals and slaves to realise that what they were doing was complete rubbish although not before amassing an impressive collection of human skulls.  Strangely if you cut the head off a warrior in battle and take it as proof of your prowess that means you're a savage (and phrenology would no doubt prove it) but if you hack the head off a corpse that you didn't even meet in life and then start fondling the head bumps apparently you're a scientist (or possibly a necrophiliac).

Nowadays, in this enlightened age phrenology has been put where it belongs;  in alternative medicine clinics, fifth rate horror movies and shops that cater to people who may live in the real world but aren't particularly crazy about it.  This last is where I encountered phrenology.  In a hippy shop in Springwood I ran across a bust (not actually a skull which seems a bit of a ripoff) that had all of the various different "regions" of the brain mapped out on it so that an amateur phrenologist could make his diagnosis. 

The hippy shop was typical of the breed, it sold soap, beads, incense, little porcelain froggy things that even a real frog wouldn't want, brightly coloured but not particularly good crockery and clothing that was so natural it was practically fraying as you watched.  Plus a whole lot of imported crap from China and phrenology busts.  I'm hoping they were being sold as curiosities and not as a careers advice tool for children.