Phrenology Research Environment

LAWRENCE, William (1783-1867)

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Metadata

Born: 1783

Died: 1867

Editorial Description

surgeon and lecturer on surgery at St. Bartholomew's Hosp, 1824-65; MRCS 1805, FRS 1813; pres Coll Surg, 1846, 1855; med reformer and advocate of a onefaculty system; a materialist, he debated theories of life with ABER- NETHY in the 1810s; although never lecturing exclusively on phrenology, he incorporated and popularized the ideas of GALL and SPURZHEIM in his Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, Physiology. Zoology, and Natural History of Man (1819), where he observed that no one could refuse GALL'S theory 'patient enquiry, careful observation, and unprejudiced reflection' and praised it as opening up wonderful new terrain. (DNB; DSB)

Works as Listed by Roger Cooter (1989)

643.1 — 643.1 Facts versus Fiction! An Essay on the Function of the Brain. (Selected from 'Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man'). London: J. Watson, 1832. Pp. 15. (2d) 2nd ed, 1840. (Widely advertised in the working class and radical press.)

Editorial Information

Identifier	643.
Type	Person
Source	Roger Cooter, Phrenology in the British Isles (1989)
PDF page	202
Printed page	197
Database ID	1886

Original Transcription

643. LAWRENCE, William (1783-1867), surgeon and lecturer on surgery at St. Bartholomew's Hosp, 1824-65; MRCS 1805, FRS 1813;
pres Coll Surg, 1846, 1855; med reformer and advocate of a onefaculty system; a materialist, he debated theories of life with ABER-
NETHY in the 1810s; although never lecturing exclusively on phrenology, he incorporated and popularized the ideas of GALL and
SPURZHEIM in his Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, Physiology.
Zoology, and Natural History of Man (1819), where he observed that
no one could refuse GALL'S theory 'patient enquiry, careful observation, and unprejudiced reflection' and praised it as opening up
wonderful new terrain. (DNB; DSB)