Editing Phrenology (section)

== Application ==

=== Racism ===
Some scientists believed phrenology affirmed European superiority over other races. By comparing skulls of different ethnic groups it was thought to allow for ranking of races from least to most evolved. Broussais, a disciple of Gall, proclaimed that the Caucasians were the most beautiful, while peoples like the [[Indigenous Australians|Australian Aboriginal]] and [[Māori people|Māori]] would never become civilized since "they had no cerebral organ for producing great artists".{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=59}} Few phrenologists argued for the [[Abolitionism|emancipation of the slaves]], while many used it to advocate for slavery.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Branson |first=Susan |date=2017 |title=Phrenology and the Science of Race in Antebellum America |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/90000339 |journal=Early American Studies |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=164–193 |jstor=90000339 |issn=1543-4273 |access-date=2022-07-12 |archive-date=2022-07-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220712100057/https://www.jstor.org/stable/90000339 |url-status=live }}</ref> Instead they argued that through education and interbreeding the "lesser peoples" could improve.{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=62}} Another argument was that the natural inequality of people could be used to situate them in the most appropriate place in society.<ref name=":1" />

=== Gender stereotyping ===
[[Sexism|Gender stereotyping]] was also common with phrenology. Women, whose heads were generally larger in the back with lower foreheads, were thought to have underdeveloped organs necessary for success in the arts and sciences while having larger mental organs relating to the care of children and religion.{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=64}} While phrenologists did not contest the existence of talented women, this minority did not provide justification for citizenship or participation in politics.{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=65}}

The popularly held phrenological belief in the Victorian era was that women's brains were smaller and weaker than those of men and as such were incapable of being practitioners themselves. Evidence from letters written by the phrenologists [[Johann Spurzheim]] to his wife, Honorine Spurzheim, suggest that he had a number of women attending his lectures that were interested in phrenology.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |last=Bittel |first=Carla |date=April 23, 2020 |title=Woman, Know Thyself: Phrenology, Gender and Nineteenth-Century Cultures of Science |url=https://www.wimlf.org/blog/woman-know-thyself-phrenology-gender-and-nineteenth-century-cultures-of-science |website=Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation}}</ref> He held the belief that women did not have necessary "superiority of intellectual powers". Despite this, many middle class women were just as captivated by the pseudoscience as their male counterparts. Contributions to the field of phrenology would be made by prominent figures such as [[Lydia Folger Fowler]], the second American woman ever to receive a medical degree, who created character charts and lectured extensively on the subject.<ref name=":02" />

Phrenology had an appeal to middle class women as a chance to understand their own minds and "know thyself" by creating charts that were very clear evidence for the organs of intellect being just as prominent in their brains as they were in men's.<ref name=":02" />

=== Education ===
One of the considered practical applications of phrenology was education. Due to the nature of phrenology people were naturally considered unequal, as very few people would have a naturally perfect balance between organs. Thus education would play an important role in creating a balance through rigorous exercise of beneficial organs while repressing baser ones. One of the best examples of this is [[Félix Voisin]], who, for approximately ten years, ran a reform school in [[Issy-les-Moulineaux|Issy]] for the express purpose of correction of the mind of children who had suffered some hardship. Voisin focused on four categories of children for his reform school:{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=74}}
* Slow learners
* Spoiled, neglected, or harshly treated children
* Willful, disorderly children
* Children at high risk of inheriting mental disorders

=== Criminology ===
Phrenology was one of the first{{clarify|date=August 2021}} to bring about the idea of rehabilitation of criminals instead of vindictive punishments that would not stop criminals, only with the reorganizing a disorganized brain would bring about change.{{sfn|Lyons|2009|pp=79–80}} Voisin believed along with others the accuracy of phrenology in diagnosing criminal tendencies. Diagnosis could point to the type of offender, the insane, an idiot or brute, and by knowing this an appropriate course of action could be taken.{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=74}} A strict system of reward and punishment, hard work and religious instruction, was thought to be able to correct those who had been abandoned and neglected with little education and moral ground works. Those who were considered intellectually disabled could be put to work and housed collectively while only criminals of intellect and vicious intent needed to be confined and isolated.{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=77}} Phrenology also advocated variable prison sentences, the idea being that those who were only defective in education and lacking in morals would soon be released while those who were "mentally deficient" could be watched and the truly abhorrent criminals would never be released.{{sfn|Parssinen|1974|p=6}}<ref>{{cite journal |title=Punishing Criminals |journal=Phrenological Journal |date=March 1871 |volume=LII |series=Num 3 |issue=Whole Number 386 |pages=200–204}}</ref>{{sfn|Lyons|2009|p=80}} For other patients phrenology could help redirect impulses, one homicidal individual became a butcher to control his impulses, while another became a [[military chaplain]] so he could witness killings.{{sfn|Staum|2003|p=76}} Phrenology also provided reformist arguments for the lunatic asylums of the Victorian era. [[John Conolly]], a physician interested in psychological aspects of disease, used phrenology on his patients in an attempt to use it as a diagnostic tool. While the success of this approach is debatable, Conolly, through phrenology, introduced a more humane way of dealing with the mentally ill.{{sfn|McGrew|1985|p=261}} The first phrenological testimony in a court of law was solicited by American lawyer [[John Neal]] in [[Portland, Maine]], in 1834.<ref>{{cite book |last=Thompson |first=Courtney E. |date=2021 |title=An Organ of Murder: Crime, Violence, and Phrenology in Nineteenth-Century America |location=New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London |publisher=[[Rutgers University Press]] |pages=55, 191n4 |isbn=978-1978813069}}</ref> Neal argued unsuccessfully that the jury should take leniency on his client because the part of his brain associated with violent behavior was inflamed.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Holtzman |first=Geoffrey S. |date=December 16, 2015 |title=When Phrenology Was Used in Court: Lessons in Neuroscience from the 1834 Trial of a 9-year-old |url=https://slate.com/technology/2015/12/how-phrenology-was-used-in-the-1834-trial-of-9-year-old-major-mitchell.html |magazine=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |location=New York |access-date=April 4, 2021 |archive-date=May 16, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516205433/https://slate.com/technology/2015/12/how-phrenology-was-used-in-the-1834-trial-of-9-year-old-major-mitchell.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Psychiatry ===
In psychiatry, phrenology was proposed as a viable model in order to the disciplinary field. The South Italian psychiatrist Biagio Miraglia proposed a new classification of mental illness based on brain functions as they were described by Gall. In Miraglia's view, madness is consequent to dysfunctions of the cerebral organs: "The organs of the brain that may become ill in isolation or in complex get their activities infected through energy, or depression, or inertia or deficiency. So the madness can take the appearance of these three characteristic forms; i.e. for enhanced activity, or for depressed activity, or for inertia or deficiency of brain activities".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Miraglia |first=Biagio G. |orig-date=1874 |date=2014 |url=http://www.crossingdialogues.com/Ms-E14-02.pdf |title=A new classification of mental illness based on brain functions |journal=Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences |volume=7 |number=2 |pages=636–637 |access-date=2016-11-11 |archive-date=2017-01-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170112160354/http://www.crossingdialogues.com/Ms-E14-02.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Psychology ===
In the [[Victorian era]], phrenology as a psychology was taken seriously and permeated the literature and novels of the day. Many prominent public figures, such as the [[Henry Ward Beecher|Reverend Henry Ward Beecher]] (a college classmate and initial partner of Orson Fowler) promoted phrenology actively as a source of psychological insight and self-knowledge.{{sfn|McCandless|1992|p=204}} In Europe and the United States, many people visited phrenologists to have their heads analysed. After such an examination, clients received a written delineation of their character or a standardized chart with their score, combined with advice on how to improve themselves.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sysling |first=Fenneke |date=June 2018 |title=Science and self-assessment: phrenological charts 1840–1940 |journal=The British Journal for the History of Science |language=en |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=261–280 |doi=10.1017/S0007087418000055 |pmid=29576034 |issn=0007-0874 |doi-access=free|hdl=1887/123052 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> People also consulted phrenologists for advice in matters such as hiring personnel or finding suitable marriage partners.{{sfn|McCandless|1992|p=210}}<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/pseudosciencepar00hine |title=Pseudoscience and the paranormal: a critical examination of the evidence |last=Hines |first=Terence |date=1988 |publisher=[[Prometheus Books]] |isbn=0879754192 |location=Buffalo, NY |oclc=17462273 |url-access=registration}}</ref> As such, phrenology as a brain science waned but developed into the popular psychology of the 19th century.