Combe, George — Elements of Phrenology

New York, WIlliam H. Colyer, 1842. Fifth Edition, Revised and Enlar. Hardcover. Size: 24mo 5" - 6" tall. Published in New York from the enlarged and revised Fifth Edition from the Edinburgh publisher. Bound in contemporary calf-leather, scuffed and worn but still sturdy. Gilt-rules to spine, gilt lettering to black leather compartment. Front and rear boards attached but holding by their strings. 256 pp. Fifty-three black-and-white engravings, quite fine, of entire skulls, busts, girls, boys, etc., and each captioned with putative personality "types" (bilious, sanguine, etc.). Clean, unmarked interior despite the inevitable foxing and slight toning. A fine, early survey for popular audiences of the new field of phrenology that sprung first from the works of the German neurologist Franz Joseph Gall (1757-1828) and especially his 1810 work: Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular, with observations on the possibility of recognizing several intellectual and moral dispositions of man and animals by the configuration of their head. This theory locates cerebral functions in specific regions of the brain (Wikipedia). The title continues at great length. The "map" that appears on Gall's phrenological skull was comprised of large and small bumps that he "read" and measured by the use of calipers and then the building of external, plaster busts by means of the principles of "cranioscopy." The author here, George Combe, in 1820, was among the founders of the Phrenological Society of Edinburgh, and then other phrenological societies sprung up in Philadelphia and elsewhere including Paris. Combe's text here is gentle and introductory, meant to be understood and appreciated by a general audience. It was applied later and became the more overtly racist and bigoted with the theories of Cesar Lombroso, who sought to find a statistical association between facial features and morals (Wikipedia).Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. . . . Fair