Some time in the 18th-century, Austrian physician Franz Joseph Gall decided the secret to understanding human nature lay in... fondling people's heads. After noticing pickpockets had bumps above their ears, he developed an entire pseudoscience based on skull-groping, claiming that personality traits could be "read" through cranial protuberances.

This head-based horoscope system became so popular in Victorian times that wealthy folks would line up to have their skulls examined by "professionals" wielding decorative busts covered in labelled zones like "Amativeness" (sexual desires) and "Destructiveness".

Though eventually debunked, Phrenology left a mixed legacy: while it helped spark legitimate neurological research, it also became a dangerous tool of scientific racism, used to justify racial oppression through its fraudulent claims.