phrenology

Natural healing: phrenology

Phrenology, also referred to as cranial doctrine or cranioscopy, was a concept originally derived from the German physician and anatomist Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828), who later taught in France, and one of the influences that led to the founding of Darwin's osteopathy and evolutionary theories and Spencer was supposed to have been. Gall had tried in his teachings to assess traits, mental abilities and characteristics, as well as functions based on the skull shape and assign them to certain brain areas. He is thus seen as a pioneer of modern neuroscience.

contents

• Natural healing: phrenology
• Reason for phrenology
• Dissemination of phrenology
• End of phrenology

Reason for phrenology

Franz Joseph Gall began to work in Vienna in 1785 after completing his degree in medicine. In addition to the external shape of the head, he also examined the inner life, the brain. He discovered previously unknown anatomical structures and functional connections. He also studied the head shape and associated it with abilities or characteristics of the affected persons. He began by his observations to formulate laws. Gall is said to have procured a substantial collection of skulls, plaster casts and wax models for his studies. Gall was not only fixated on structures but considered his research from a philosophical point of view as well, e.g. sought the place of the soul in the brain.

Dissemination of phrenology

In 1802 his research and ideas in Austria were branded as heretical. Gall started teaching his apprenticeship throughout Europe with his assistant, the theologian Johann Caspar Spurzheim, before relocating to Paris in 1807. After some time, Scottish lawyer George Combe joined them and supported them. Combe wrote in 1828 with "Essay on the Constitution of Man and its Relations to External Objects" the phrenology standard work in the year of death of Gall, which was also based on naturalistic principles. Combes brother Andrew began to spread phrenology on a grand scale through a publication in the sense of a universally accessible simple medicine in America. From the 1850s, itinerant preachers in the United States, among others, brought the phrenology books to the people and offered character analysis based on the interpretation of the bulges of the human skulls. Of the skulls they always had a considerable number, which impressed the audience.

The phrenology was considered in the episode as chic, progressive and modern. It established itself particularly fast in the psychology and Intellektuellen circles quite rapidly and successfully. She argued, for example, against teachers' physical abuse of students and blunt memorization as pedagogical tools, stressing the importance of the mother's role in the child's development, and integrated turn-based exercises into the daily routine.

End of phrenology

The influence of phrenology went so far that even Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer should have been influenced in their work on the evolution of phrenology. Later, some of Gall's assumptions, including those of Paul Broca and Wernicke, were scientifically confirmed. Others, however, such as the connection between skull shape and traits or abilities that formed the core of phrenology, were rejected. Phrenology was complemented and eventually superseded by less fatalistic concepts such as Mesmerism or Spiritualism.

The fixation on the head or the nervous system as a central switching point is seen critically today from a naturopathic point of view. As in the computer industry, peripheral centers are seen as equal and in part autonomous. The previous dominance or superordinate role of centralized structures has not proved to be a useful model for clinical reality. (Tf)