Punch,  2 (1842), 21.

Phrenotypics; or, Brain Printing

Anon

Genre:

Reportage, Spoof

Subjects:

Phrenology, Psychology, Quackery, Societies


    Spoof report of paper on 'printing on the brain' by a Major Veryslowsky at the Shadwell Institution for the Encouragement of Human Everything. Veryslowsky describes cases of people who exhibited formidable memory. Introduces his system of 'phrenotypics' in which parts of books to be memorised are 'chalked up on the wall in very large letters'. Notes that the contents of James Grant's The Great Metropolis can be memorised with the words 'Grant', 'Quackery', 'Pure', and 'Nonsense'. Notes that Veryslowsky's audience left cheering and exclaiming '"Quackery", "Pure Nonsense" in conformity with' the lecturer's lesson.



© Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Project, Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, 2005 - 2020

Printed from Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: An Electronic Index, v. 4.0, The Digital Humanities Institute <http://www.sciper.org> [accessed ]