Willie’s Phrenological Examination
To better be prepared to pass judgment on the incident, the reader is urged to turn to appendix D to read the full setting of a letter written to a close friend in Battle Creek, in which there appears the one single E. G. White reference to the matter. Here is the sum total of her allusion to phrenology:CBPH 55.13
Adelia and the children have been examined today. The doctor pronounces Adelia sick. We shall have their written prescriptions this week, then you can know more in regard to them. I think Dr. Jackson gave an accurate account of the disposition and organization of our children. He pronounces Willie’s head to be one of the best that has ever come under his observation. He gave a good description of Edson’s character and peculiarities.... I think this examination will be worth everything to Edson.—EGW Letter 6, 1864.CBPH 55.14
The reader can judge if the information thus justifies the strong wording employed in Prophetess of Health on page 90.CBPH 55.15
Fascinating to Ellen White was the “science” of phrenology, which Dr. Jackson practiced at five dollars a reading. Soon after the arrival of Edson and Willie she took them to the doctor for evaluations of their “constitutional organization, functional activity, temperament, predisposition to disease, natural aptitudes for business, fitness for connubial and maternal conditions, etc., etc.” Writing to friends, she could scarcely conceal her elation with Jackson’s flattering analysis.CBPH 55.16
The Whites were at a medical institution—all evidence points to their taking their children and their lady helper, Adelia Patten to Dr. Jackson for routine medical examinations soon after their arrival at Dansville. Note Ellen White’s wording: “Adelia and the children have been examined today. The doctor pronounces Adelia sick” (Letter 6, 1864).CBPH 56.1
Dr. Jackson, in an advertisement published in 1867, described the examinations he had been giving for the past three years (which would include the time Ellen White was at Dansville) as evaluations of “constitutional organization, functional activity, temperament, [and] predisposition to disease.” This is what he offered. But there is no indication that James and Ellen White particularly sought a phrenological examination which turned out to be just a part of the routine exam given at the time.CBPH 56.2
The written report of Dr. Jackson’s examination of Willie White is extant and is published in Appendix D. It deals primarily with his physical constitution although it touches on his temperament.CBPH 56.3
While Jackson’s examination doubtless included some phrenological aspects, it was not for a “phrenological” examination primarily that Ellen White took her children, and her taking the children to Jackson was not necessarily motivated by an interest in phrenology.CBPH 56.4
Adelia Patten, the young lady who assisted the Whites and accompanied them to Dansville, and who was examined by Jackson along with the White boys, also wrote about her experience to the Lockwoods:CBPH 56.5
We passed examination a day or two ago. As my turn came he [Jackson] set me [in] a chair and said, ‘My dear you are sick, ain’t you.’ Bro. White gave him a little sketch of our Graham life during the past summer and of what my cares and labors had been. He said that I had evidently overworked that I must make a decided change, and take a rest or it would tell seriously by and by. He gave advice, etc., and said when I got thoroughly initiated to their style of living if I took proper exercise and rest I would enjoy better health than ever before. I have their system about one half of it practically learned.—Adelia Patten to Sister Lockwood, Sept. 15, 1864; Appendix D.CBPH 56.6
If head reading was a prominent part of the examination, why does not Adelia make some mention of it? But she does not.CBPH 56.7
Another factor to be considered is the actual form of Jackson’s report on his examination of Willie White. It is a simple four-page handwritten prose document, not a phrenological chart indicating the relative strength and weakness of the usual phrenologist’s thirty-seven mental areas. (See Appendix D for the full report.) This fact alone is very revealing since the standard phrenological exam yielded such a chart—indeed, anyone sitting for such an exam would feel greatly cheated were he not to receive such a report.CBPH 56.8
A reading at Fowler and Wells entitled the patient to a copy of Fowler’s Practical Phrenology, a chart and commentary bound in the front part of his standard book, Phrenology Proved. [See Davies, p. 37, 38, 47 and Prophetess of Health, page 68.] The Fowler chart had blanks for the names of the patient and his examiner, as did, presumably, most of the other charts offered by phrenologists.CBPH 56.9
Jackson stated his own position on phrenology in July of 1862. A correspondent sent in the question:CBPH 56.10
“What would you think of having some pieces on Phrenology in the ‘Laws [of Life]’? We think that the mental and physical systems of man are so closely connected, that it will not seem out of its place in a Health Journal.”CBPH 56.11
Jackson replied:CBPH 56.12
I am a believer in Phrenology. I think it the only sound mental philosophy. On no other basis in my judgment can human nature be properly illustrated or held responsible for its peculiar exhibitions and conditions. I am sure that I can demonstrate to the satisfaction of any candid man, that it is entirely compatible with the most orthodox views of religion. As a Christian, therefore, I feel no indisposition to its acceptance; and as a physician who has largely to deal with morbid conditions of body, originating in states of mind that are abnormal, I feel greatly gratified with the knowledge I derive from a belief in it; yet I do not choose to devote the Laws of Life, which is peculiarly a Health Journal, to the discussion of mental philosophy in the abstract.—Laws of Life, Vol. 5, July, 1862, p. 101.CBPH 56.13
Jackson is obviously a believer but not an advocate at this point. He does not feel the connection between phrenology and health so close as to necessitate any discussion of it in his journal. Such a position accords quite well with the evidence from the examination of the White children two years later. Phrenology was a part of the examination, but not a prominent part.CBPH 56.14
Finally, in this case Ellen White merely reports to a friend concerning the examination and the Jackson statement about her son’s head. Nowhere do we find any other reference to the experience. Nowhere do we find her advocating cranioscopy (head reading). It is significant that the best medical authorities of her time made a marked distinction between the brain regions with various intellectual faculties and the idea that these faculties might be recognized on the exterior of the cranium. (See Davies, p. 135.) Medical authorities were willing to entertain the former notion, but not the latter.CBPH 56.15
A passing reference to cranioscopy—“He pronounces Willie’s head to be one of the best”—indicates only a passing interest in a single incident and it is significant that Ellen White never took up the advocacy by either private or public endorsement of cranioscopy.CBPH 56.16
The fact that she did not say more about it is far more remarkable, given the widespread acceptance which the practice enjoyed in her time.CBPH 56.17
Prophetess of Health considers Ellen White’s one single reference to a phrenological reading in a private letter of sufficient importance to give space to it in the text, and also to introduce three appendix items relating to it. These are the only exhibits considered of sufficient importance to rate appendix status. The reader can easily discover the weight they actually carry.CBPH 56.18
The contributions of phrenology to education, the treatment of mental illness, etc., and the fact that its concepts and terminology pervaded nineteenth century America was discussed on pages 46, 47 of this critique.CBPH 57.1
Ellen White’s use of phraseology linked with phrenology is dealt with in Chapter Six, “Short Skirts and Sex.”CBPH 57.2