phrenologist

plural phrenologists

1. An adherent or practitioner of phrenology.

   During a skull reading, a phrenologist would measure and carefully feel a person’s head.

   2023 November 17, Kendra Cherry, “How a Phrenology Head Was Traditionally Used”, in Verywell Mind, archived from the original on 09 Feb 2025

   2 more examples

   The phrenologist, who regulates heart and mind by undulations of the skull, has another system.

   1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter IX, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 112

   One significance weakness of phrenology in the eyes of most anatomists, as Anne Harrington has shown, was that the brain comprised two structurally identical cerebral hemispheres, separated by a longitudinal fissure, whereas phrenologists held that the material sub-stratum of various mental faculties was located in only one hemisphere, and not its twin.

   2020 October 5, Paul Turnbull, “Thinking About Craniometry- The Racial Turn”, in Paul Turnbull

   Synonyms: cranioscopist