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Editorial
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The top two internal structures of the brain that orchestrate the mind, identified by Dr Franz Gall (1758–1828) and Dr Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776–1832) as set out in their Physiognomical system of the nervous system in general and of the brain in particular (1815), are the organs of amativeness and philoprogenitiveness. Dr Gall discovered the centre for amativeness by chance. As physician to a widow subject to strong hysterical fits in which, among other postures, she arched her head backwards, Gall noted while supporting her during one such spasm that the widow's neck was hot and engorged. Knowing that she was ‘extremely fond of sensual pleasure’, Dr Gall therefore attributed her ‘excessive passion for physical love’ to the size of her cerebellum. Drawing on equally compelling data, he went on to correlate overdevelopment of the cerebellum with ‘onanism, pederasty, tribady, bestiality, adultery and incest’ and cerebellar underdevelopment with ‘chastity, continency
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