PHRENOLOGY IN THE SCIENCE AND CULTURE OF THE 19TH-CENTURY

IN THE LAST decade of the 18th century, Franz Joseph Call of Vienna in vented a combination of physiognomy and brain localization that he ori ginally called ''craniology'' (the science of the head) and later call ed ''organology'' (the science of the organs of the brain). Between 18 00 and 1812, he worked with Johann Christoph Spurzheim on a variety of important neuroanatomic studies to support this new science. By 1812, when they parted company in Paris, Spurzheim had become intrigued wit h the psychosocial potential of the undertaking, which he renamed ''ph renology'' (the science of the mind). Because a phrenological examinat ion (palpation of skull prominences) could provide an analysis of a pe rson's strengths and weaknesses, Spurzheim thought that his system cou ld lead to personal improvement for everyone, including the laboring c lasses. He was thus a 19th century reformer, generally on the liberal side of the political and social spectrum. Spurzheim spread his gospel to Britain through several long lecture tours, and phrenology became briefly popular through the efforts of other British reformers, especi ally George Combe. In 1832, Spurzheim came to the United States. Three months later, he died in Boston, a martyr to his cause. Phrenology th en spread widely into American popular culture, encouraged by the entr epreneurial efforts of ''the phrenological Fowlers'' and others like t hem. By 1843, the entire Western scientific community rejected organol ogy and phrenology. All forms of cerebral localization were lumped wit h phrenology and similarly repudiated. Nonetheless, Call's organology was the first comprehensive, premodern statement of a theory of cerebr al localization. The early pioneers of modern localization, especially Paul Broca and David Ferrier, were careful to define how their theori es differed from phrenology, even as they provided the clinical and sc ientific data that confirmed some of its basic tenets.