NEW ILLUSTRATED SELF-INSTRUCTOR IN PHRENOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY 1873 with marked chart


Bumps and declivities on the skull signify certain basic aspects of the human character. Pronounced features signify excesses of this tendancy. Many devotees possessed phrenological busts giving the Norm against which the sitter could be judged. From the finger tips comes the narrative of a human being. it affords great amusement to the disbeliver...

Two standard Phrenological diagrams give you the basic idea - as a structure of zones, and, more appealisgly, with pictorial clues as to the capacities of the cranium. On the right, there is a lithograph to advertise a vaudeville show c1885, The Author's Head , issued by the Musical Hall Comedy Team, Meysteyer Vaughn. Looked at carefully, the image shows drink at the end of the nose and sex above the left ear.

Helen and Peter Cooper Phrenology biblio

William Bally, case with 60 small phrenological heads 1831

THE SYMBOLIC HEAD, from The Picture Magazine 1893

Albertus Magnus, On the Mental Faculties, Bescia 1493

Charles Pears cartoon 1902, Mr.Punch's Book for Children

Inside America, CBS

George Cruikshank

Durer's Phrenological Head from Ludovicus' Trilogium Animae, Nuremburg 1598

The Gentle Art of the Expense Account 09.49

William Hogarth, print attacking phrenology (gravity weighed in heads)

TELL YOUR FORTUNE MISTER? 1945 (Comptometer)