Phrenology, or, The doctrine of the mind : and of the relations between its manifestations and the body / by J. Spurzheim.

  • Spurzheim, J. G. (Johann Gaspar), 1776-1832.
Date:
MDCCCXXV. [1825]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Phrenology, or, The doctrine of the mind : and of the relations between its manifestations and the body / by J. Spurzheim. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    study the influence of the nervous system, are espe- cially called upon to contribute to the advancement of the knowledge of man. The exercise of no profession indeed makes the necessity of knowing both his phy- sical and his moral state so intimately felt as that of medicine, in consequence of the influence of affections of the mind upon the vital functions. Who has not observed that grief, jealousy, envy, hopeless love, and similar painful affections, consume the principle of life? The examination of the nervous system, and of its influence, further interests physicians espe- cially, as all mental alienations have their primitive cause in the mediate or immediate derangement of a part or of the whole of it. In pointing out the con- ditions necessary to the manifestations of the sen- timents and intellectual faculties in the healthy state, we consequently contribute also to elucidate mental diseases; no one, then, is more interested than the physician in discovering the nature of man. Fortunately no class of men is better prepared than physicians to investigate such subjects by accessory knowledge, and by the study of nature in general; nor is any one so frequently and so seriously admo- nished by nature to revise opinions, to forsake hypo- thetical reasoning, and to follow the simple method of experience, as he who is occupied in the treatment of disease. No philosopher has such ample oppor- tunity of being intimately convinced, that all our knowledge ought to be reduced to a rational mode of judging from experiment and observation. The phy-