13. A pseudo-scientific field of human anatomical study, phrenology claimed to be able to identify and explain character traits through measurements and examinations of the skull
Offering a revolutionary alternative interpretation of bodily primacy, Hippocrates and his followers transformed human understanding by shifting priority from the heart to the brain. Perpetuated by Galen, the belief that mental activity – and thus the animal soul – inhabited the brain prompted investigations of character to focus upon the cranial organ. Introduced by Johann Kaspar Lavater in the 1770s, Lavator’s Physiognomische Fragmente argued the thoughts and souls of a human were intimately connected to an individual’s physical frame. Asserting a perpendicular forehead to be a sign of intellectual deficiency, Levator’s work was quickly adopted and advanced by others.
Notably by Franz Joseph Gall, who would become the leading exponent of the field of phrenology, Gall established what he claimed to be scientific determinations of a relationship between the skull and a person’s character. Extrapolating findings beyond any reasonable standard of scientific inquiry, phrenology was rapidly employed for the purposes of scientific racism and used to persecute ethnic and social minorities. Lacking any scientific foundation, however, phrenology was increasingly rejected by the late-19th century, although notably was used in the 1930s by Belgian authorities in Rwanda to justify their advancement of the Tutsis over the Hutus.