Editing Phrenology (section)

== Phrenology as popular science ==
Part of phrenology's rise in popularity was the availability of ideas from scholars that were shared throughout the nineteenth century. Various societies all over Europe and in the United States kept the middle class well informed on the developments in the pseudoscientific field of research by way of regularly publishing journals.

One of the earliest publications of phrenology was George Combe's ''Phrenological Journal'' which sat among other books, pamphlets, and articles he published in order to popularize the pseudoscience.{{sfn|Parssinen|1974}} As mentioned previously, phrenology had a wide reach and a multi-faceted appeal from nobility to working class, and this would be his breakthrough publication in Great Britain. The most compelling argument Combe would make for the superiority of European nations and people over that of the rest of the world would be in an article he published titled "On the Cerebral Development of Nations". In this publication he determined that the reason Africa, Asian, and American Indians had never had a superior civilization due to "their inherent mental deficiencies".{{sfn|Parssinen|1974}}

The Edinburgh Phrenological Society had their own scholarly journal called the ''Phrenological Journal and Miscellany'' which ran from 1823 to 1847.{{sfn|Parssinen|1974}} This was highly influential and the most highly sought after publication to read on phrenology in the British provinces in the early nineteenth century.