Relics of phrenology in Malta

Abstract

The cerebral cortex had been at the centre of studies of certain physiologists such as Franz Joseph Gall who put forward the assumption that the skull was an exact cast of the underlying cortex. In Malta, the impact of phrenology is first shown in the initiatives of the editor of the Malta Times (1841). His aim was to induce the Maltese “to think on subjects relating to the mind” and he asserted that he was the first person to “instruct them by the good method of public lectures”. In announcing his course of lectures in the press, Mr. Richardson appealed to the public "for the loan of any busts, craniums and drawings of heads of such remarkable characters as will illustrate his lectures." Apart from the literary evidence, two relics of the phrenological period in Malta (1838-62) have survived. These are two human skulls with the locations of the various "organs" mapped out and labelled on their external surfaces.