Statistics of phrenology : being a sketch of the progress and present state of that science in the British Islands.

  • Watson, Hewett Cottrell, 1804-1881.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statistics of phrenology : being a sketch of the progress and present state of that science in the British Islands. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    38/262 (page 23)
    ^ja»tt<JffBtiBiiti'n^Tj-^ ,a,.'.a< i*»e'Vw««r«an jl-ii. i < tiWrTii-rii^j I. HISTORY OF PHRENOLOGY. ■ 23 example of the contradictions into which men of much ;il)ility may fall, \vhea arguing on the wrong side of a di^putr•d question ; for we find him actually talking about the ]j(jjji(larity of the doctrines so decidedly condemned by him, and about the difficulty of keeping his own pupils from attending to Gall and other continental physiologists in preference to their own countrymen. What a compli- ment to his pupils ! Thej- prefer and would make popular this extravagant departure from all the legitimate modes of reasoning, notwithstanding their master's exertions to keep them in another path ! A year later, in IS^t, Mr. Rolph published a book to inform the public that anatomy, reason, common sense, and Scripture, are not in accordance with phrenological principles. Notwithstanding this somewhat ludicrous malposition of words, in his title-page, we must exonerate the author (in consideration of his surgical profession) of all intention to express disbelief in anatomy, whatever absence of reason and common sense some have been dis- posed to attribute to his book. The fact of a professional man having published a work of this nature within a dozen years of the present time, is worthy of record in the history of phrenology. The work itself we have not seen ; we have asked for it in vain at good medical libraries, and it is omitted in Bent's London Catalogue. The Phre- nological Journal is our authority for its existence and contents. The preceding examples of anti-phrenological efforts will probably satiate readers ; and thej have been purposely selected from the best adverse authorities, for the better evidencing of the determined opposition offered to phre- nology. Still, we beg a little longer patience, and inyite r(ad(;rs to return with us into Scotland; where, in 1825, Mr. Gruhame Hutchinson, a merchant in Glasgow, is said to have read one hundred facts, subversive of phrenology, to a literary society in that town. He never made them