Originally posted by Sam1070@Apr 1 2005, 04:17 PM
This is a spin off of an Italian physician's physical-type theories that were popular around 1890 - 1900. If I remember correctly, his last name was Lombroso. I suppose his "research" was done in a period when phrenology was widely accepted as valid science.
[post=295994]Quoted post[/post]
Yep. Phrenology itself began with Franz-Joseph Gall (It's always those Austrians.) in the mid-18th century. To his credit, Gall was the first recorded physician to realize that different parts of the brain control different things. (We now know, for example, that the hippocampus controls memory and visual-spatial skills.) His big mistake was that he assumed all these organs would be on the surface of the brain.
By the late 19th century, phrenology had become much like astrology. With the advent of recapitulation theory, though, phrenology was back en vogue, and other organs were useful to physiognomy. Lombroso charted criminal rats, criminal doves, criminal ants, and, in the strangest anthropomorphism of all, criminal pitcher plants. Lombroso's school of criminology had many believers, including Maria Montessori. Apparently it's still popular with the LAPD.