Phrenology vindicated : being a reply to the article by Dr Andrew Wilson, entitled "The old phrenology and the new", which appeared in "The gentleman's magazine", January, 1879 / by A.L. Vago.

  • Vago, A. L. (Ambrose Lewis)
Date:
[1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Phrenology vindicated : being a reply to the article by Dr Andrew Wilson, entitled "The old phrenology and the new", which appeared in "The gentleman's magazine", January, 1879 / by A.L. Vago. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    While Phrenology thus informs us of the nature of the mind, it affords no explanation of its mystery. But Dr. Wilson is under the impression that much less than this will serve to remove the mystery by which the mind is surrounded. He thinks, presuming Phrenology to be true, that the phrenologist has only to point out which part of the brain is being affected when the mind is swayed by one or other emotion, and the thing is done. And then he tells us : “ This declaration logically follows upon that which maintains the localisa- tion of faculties in different parts of the brain.” Did ever mountebank utter such charlatanry? That the corporeal organs occupy different parts of the body is a physiological fact; and perfectly consistent with this is the phrenological proposition that the organs of the mental faculties occupy different parts of the brain ; yet this, Dr. Wilson says, “ is a conclusion from which physiology simply retires in outspoken disdain.” Here the Doctor should speak for himself, and not in the name of physiology seek shelter for blurting such non- sense. Until the recognition of Phrenology there was no physiology of the brain; even its anatomy was im- perfectly known. It was the phrenologist, Dr. Spurzheim, who, with a brain in one hand and a spatula in the other, proved, what was not known to the medical world before, that the brain in most part consisted of fibrous