Contemporary hand-drawn phrenology manual
De la Phrénologie. Tableau des facultés de l'intelligence, d'après la doctrine du docteur Gall.
4to (ca. 185 x 254 mm). French manuscript on paper. 4 pp. (a bifolium), including two full-page ink drawings of a human head and its phrenological brain areals.
Accompanied by a quantity of correspondence by and from the circle of the French lawyer Jean-Baptiste-Jacques Élie de Beaumont (1732-1786): 11 letters by various hands, a total of 31 pp., mostly 4to, several on bifolia, dated 11 Oct. 1777 - 22 March 1785.
€ 4.500,00
An early phrenology manuscript entitled "On Phrenology: Table of the faculties of intelligence, according to the doctrine of Dr Gall". The manuscript shows three ink sketches of a human head, two smaller ones from the front and the back, as well as a larger sketch in profile, on all of which the 27 brain areals are marked which were claimed to perform different cognitive functions. The images are directly modelled after Gall's own drawings. Each brain areal is described on the back of the page. For example, number 6, located on the upper edge of the back of the head, is (according to phrenology) responsible for "sentiments des grandeurs, instinct d'elevation, amour du pouvoir, de la domination, de l'autorité, du despotisme, amour de l'indépendance, sentiment du grandiose, de sublime, sentiment de sa propre dignité, estime de soi-même, fierté, orgueil, arrogance, dédain, présumption" ("Feelings of grandeur, instinct for elevation, love of power, domination, authority, despotism, love of independence, feeling of the grandiose, of the sublime, feeling of one's own dignity, self-esteem, pride, arrogance, disdain, presumption"). Number 24, on the other hand, located right above the eyes, is the root of the "sentiment des personnes, mémoire des physionomies, amour des portraits" ("feeling for people, memory of physiognomies, love of portraits"). The manuscript closes with a short biography of Franz Joseph Gall.
The Baden-born physiologist Gall (1758-1828) studied medicine in Strasbourg and Vienna. The theory of phrenology, which he coined at the turn of the 19th century, posits that the human head contains twenty-seven different organs whose size and composition provide insights into a person's character. While phrenology is today regarded as pseudo-science, Gall was the first to formulate the theory of functional specialization, now the basis of modern neuroscience.
Includes a collection of letters by Jean-Baptiste Élie de Beaumont and Jean-Antoine-Élie de la Poterie to each other and other family members on such varied topics as academic work, appointments, or contract notes about lent money or books. Élie de Beaumont was a French Protestant lawyer who was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1765 for his role in the Calas affair, a 1762 dispute between Protestants and Catholics in France. His brother, Jean-Antoine-Élie de la Poterie (1735-94), was a military physician and scholar in la Manche and Paris.
Letters: 4to, 2 pp.; 8vo, 1½ p.; 8vo, 1 p.; 4to, 3 pp.; 4to, 1 p.; 4to, ½ p.; 4to, 12 pp.; 4to, 2 pp.; 4to, 2 pp. with chipped wax seal; 4to, 2 pp. with chipped wax seal; 4to, ½ p.; 4to, ½ p.
