The measure of an idea that was off its head
By the mid 19th century it had been completely discredited as a science, but between the 1820s and 1840s phrenology was at the peak of its popularity. And Edinburgh, where the first phrenological society was founded in 1820, was one of its centres.
The pseudo science of phrenology was based on the theories of the Viennese physician Franz Joseph Ga…