Spurzheim biography of michael w
In this book, he made many detailed observations that helped our understanding of brain anatomy see Figs.
Spurzheim biography of michael jackson
For example, the corpus callosum and its connections were better described. The anterior commissure was also thoroughly dissected and described along with comparing it to the anterior commissure of other animals. Spurzheim described intricate connections between the brain and the olfactory tracts as well as he described the foramen of Monro as a cleft and disagreed that it was a foramen.
Lastly, his techniques of brain dissection along with vivid depictions were a stepping stone for future researches of anatomy. Notice the innovative denomination of the diencephalon structures [ 14 ]. Spurzheim made significant contributions to our understanding of the anatomy and comparative anatomy of the brain [ 15 ]. However, the quackery related to phrenology itself would overshadow the observations that Spurzheim made on human brain anatomy [ 16 ].
Interestingly, he was also interested in patients with myelomeningocele and tried to determine the connection between hydrocephalus and the myelomeningocele by blowing air into the cut spinal cord in the neck to see if this would distend the distal lumbar sac. Wishing to further spread his knowledge, Spurzheim traveled to the USA in In Boston, he delivered a course on anatomy of the brain for physicians, and two popular courses of phrenology, aimed at the general population.
In , he became ill probably with typhoid fever and died at the age of 56 on November 17 of this year [ 17 ]. Spurzheim made many important observations about human brain anatomy. These contributions to our current understanding of neuroanatomy are often overshadowed by his participation in the pseudoscience of phrenology, but should be appreciated nonetheless.
Spurzheim biography of michael
J Hist Med Allied Sci — Langoussis JEA Talking heads. Accessed 22 Jun Walsh AA Phrenology and the Boston medical community in the s. Bull Hist Med — Psychiatr Neurol Med Psychol — CAS Google Scholar. Gall intended to have Spurzheim as his successor and added his name as a co-author to books and publications. In , however, Gall and Spurzheim had a falling out, and Spurzheim started a separate career, lecturing and writing extensively on what he termed 'The Physiognomical System of Drs Gall and Spurzheim'.
He greatly popularised phrenology, and travelled extensively throughout Europe, achieving considerable success in England and France. In he travelled to Edinburgh to refute an article by Dr John Gordon who had famously debunked Spurzheim, Gall and phrenology in general in an article in the Edinburgh Review in He died of typhoid in Boston in , cutting short his first and only American tour.
After the public autopsy of Spurzheim, his brain , skull , and heart were removed, preserved in jars of alcohol as relics , and put on display to the public. Spurzheim made many alterations to Gall's phrenological system, including an increase in the number of "organs", as well as its organization into a hierarchical system.
Spurzheim also used images and busts to illustrate the craniographic approach of phrenology. Contents move to sidebar hide. In his lectures were banned and Spurzheim returned to Britain where he took up residence in London. He published many books see my bibliography and took part in further controversies over phrenology, especially with Sir William Hamilton, professor of Universal History in Edinburgh.
In Spurzheim travelled to the United States of America where he conducted a highly successful lecture tour. Unfortunately for Spurzheim, his zeal in earning money and love of fame prevented him from suspending his lectures when he became ill and he died in Boston in Although Spurzheim assiduously spread an false version of the history of phrenology, one in which he played a partnership role with Gall in the creation of the system, Spurzheim was the man most singularly responsible for popularising and spreading phrenology to a wide audience.
Gall, F. Premier volume. Paris, F. Schoell, ; Gall, F. Spurzheim, J. Philadelphia, Illustrated html]. VIII pp. London, Paris : Porthmann, See for example the Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
There is no doubt that the correct name is Gaspar. It is on his parish birth record, and all of his publications and letters are signed with G. Leipzig, J. Gleditsch, , ff. An excellent account worth referring to. John Gaspar Spurzheim.
Spurzheim biography of michael j: Although Spurzheim assiduously spread an false version of the history of phrenology, one in which he played a partnership role with Gall in the creation of the system, Spurzheim was the man most singularly responsible for popularising and spreading phrenology to a wide audience.
Sketches of Phrenological Biography Vol. Bristol, Thoemmes Press, Wyhe, John van , Phrenology and the origins of Victorian scientific naturalism. Ashgate, Amazon link. Wyhe, John van , ' Was phrenology a reform science? Towards a new generalization for phrenology ', History of Science , xlii, , pp. Wyhe, John van , 'The diffusion of phrenology through public lecturing' in A.
Fyfe and B. Lightman eds. Chicago: University Press, , pp. Astore, William J. Some attention to G. Combe and his correspondence with Dick. Has a chapter on phrenology. An impressive thesis. Cooter, R. Essentially the same as his book. Thesis, University of California at Santa Barbara, Abstract: "Phrenology, the belief that personality, character, and aptitude can be read from the shape of the head, was much discussed and debated in Europe and the United States during the nineteenth century.
In the United States phrenology spawned a substantial popular movement that peaked during the decades before the Civil War. In light of its subsequent and widespread reputation as a pseudoscience, the success of phrenology as a popular movement remains a substantial problem of historical interpretation. This dissertation addresses this problem by examining the religious dimensions of the movement.
My main thesis is that the success of phrenology in the United States during the antebellum period was largely a function of its proponents' ability to promote an variant form of Enlightenment naturalism in ways amenable to the idioms and social perspectives of American public Protestantism. To support my argument, I explore elements of the Enlightenment that influenced the religious perspectives of the phrenological movement, trace the history of the movement in Europe and the United States, provide information on the cultural context of the popularization of phrenology in antebellum America, and discuss the various manifestations of public Protestantism in phrenological literature.
Biography of michael jackson
My primary sources include the writings of influential European and American phrenologists and their critics. Secondary sources include historical studies of American religion, theoretical writings on popular religion, and scholarly treatments of phrenology from a variety of disciplines, including religious studies, the history of science, sociology, psychology, and philosophy.
The same as his published book. Falkoff, Marc D. Brandeis University, PhD, Abstract: "'Heads and Tales' is an examination of nineteenth-century American literature in the context of phrenology, the reigning psychology of the antebellum era. Its purpose is to widen the scope of interdisciplinary research in science and literature by attending to a representative 'pseudoscience' whose cultural importance has been neglected in literary studies of the era.
Not unlike psychoanalysis, another disputed 'science of mind,' phrenology in its time received sustained interest from intellectuals, enjoyed widespread public acceptance, and was woven inextricably into the fabric of its culture; phrenology was arguably as constitutive of the nineteenth-century Zeitgeist as psychoanalysis has been to that of the twentieth.
By examining a wide range of texts and authors--including Emerson's essays, Poe's stories, Hawthorne's novels, Whitman's poetry, and Fanny Fern's newspaper columns--alongside the technical treatises and popular pamphlets of this contested science, my study sketches out a series of complex literary reactions to phrenology.
Adopting a 'cultural poetics' approach to the question of how the science interacted with the literature of the era, it treats the discourse of phrenology as a cultural 'text' which may profitably be appraised using the tools of literary analysis. This dissertation has been particularly influenced by the scholarship of Michel Foucault, and by his conjectures regarding the 'panoptic' and 'disciplinary' nature of modern society.
In particular, it argues that phrenology--with its doctrine that character and intelligence were legible from the shape of one's head--should be considered the premier example of a panoptic technology, breeding self-discipline, self-normalization, and anxiety in antebellum American culture. Thus, whether the authors analyzed in this dissertation rebelled against the disciplinary implications of phrenological science like Emerson, Hawthorne, and Fern or embraced its claims to have explained scientifically the relation between man's material and spiritual halves like Poe and Whitman , phrenology was a science which American writers found impossible to ignore.
Spurzheim biography of michael jordan
By bringing to light the unexpected ways in which they wrestled with the implications of the science, this dissertation thereby makes visible a phrenological pattern of thought in the era's literature which has until now remained hidden to modern readers. Jena, Harvard University, Nott, John William. Abstract: "For over a hundred years the term 'phrenology' has been a by-word for pseudo-science.
Yet during the first half of the 19th Century, phrenology, which taught that the brain was the organ of the mind, was considered a viable theory and applicable to education. Phrenology divided the brain into many individual faculties which shaped the skull.