The paper describes the design and use of a machine, the “Psychograph,” which automatically measured the size and shape of the skull and provided evaluations of mental traits according to phrenological principles. Developed in 1930, the psychograph was billed as a diagnostic tool capable of providing suitable vocational guidance to the thousands of unemployed as a result of the Depression. Its appearance prompted a vigorous opposition from the Psychology Department at the University of Minnesota, especially in the person of Donald L. Paterson. Subsequently, the psychograph was merely exploited for its entertainment value and disappeared after the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago.
The social construction of disease and medicine is presented in a series of case studies: P. Wright and A. Treacher, The problem of medical knowledge, Edinburgh University Press, 1982. 2 See especially Foucault's The birth of the clinic: an archaeology of medical perception, trans. from the French by A. M. Sheridan Smith, New York, Pantheon, 1973; and Madness and civilisation: a history of insanity in the age of reason, trans. from the French by R. Howard, New York, Random House, 1965. 3The sources used for this studyare a numberofstudent case booksand lecture notes. The formerwere from the official ward ledgers as part of the clinical instruction given to contemporary medical students enrolled at
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