PMID: 11640160Jan 1, 1993Paper

Introductory notes on the origin of phrenology: the work of Vincenzo Malacarne

Medicina nei secoli
F MartelliS Arieti

Abstract

The authors examine and evince the links between F.J. Gall's phrenology and Vincenzo Malacarne's studies of encephalous anatomy and mental disorders, especially in the ideas developed by the latter from 1760 to 1794. Malacarne came to believe in those years that mental disorders were organic in nature, being exhibited through alterations in the endocranium organs that could be anatomically detected and diagnosed by studying the patient's cranium. His correspondence with Bonnet enabled Malacarne to anticipate Gall in positing that the faculties of the intellect are congenital and those of the endocranium are organs consisting of individual parts each of which controls a specific intellectual activity. This in turn strengthened Malacarrne's conviction that the cranium's structure matched the development of its parts and led him to invent the cephalometer. Thus convinced of the compound nature of the endocranium's organs, Malacarne went on to develop Bonnet's thesis whereby the peculiarity of the nerve cells and their interaction were assigned a central role in intellectual activities. Yet, despite the evident fact that Malacarne attributed to the cerebellum functions proper to the brain, the points at which his and Gall's ideas o...Continue Reading

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