Physyognomy

PHYSIOGNOMY

What is physiognomy? Physiognomy is a technique for determining a person's personality type, mental qualities, and state of health by analyzing facial features and expressions. It comes from the words "physis" ("nature") and "gnomon" ("thought").

Other names for the art of reading a face are prosopology, prosopomancy. The homeland of oriental physiognomy is ancient China and Japan. In the West, it developed in Ancient Greece. Hippocrates was the first to use the term, and Aristotle, Giambattista della Porta, and Johann Kaspar Lavater, who wrote Essays on Physiognomy, developed the technique. With the help of physiognomy, Pythagoras studied the character and inclinations of young men before accepting them to study at his school.

Jody Jenkinson, associate professor of Biomedical Communications at the University of Toronto and chief researcher at the Scientific Imaging Laboratory, believes that the surge in popularity of physiognomy originated in the 14th century. And today the teaching remains popular.

The main popularity of the practice occurred in the XVIII century. The famous popularizer of physiognomy was the theologian Johann Lavater, who, following the ideas of the Porte, studied and practiced "face reading". As a result, Lavater wrote a ten-volume book on how to "figure out" a person by their facial features.

During confessions, he made psychological portraits of parishioners, and then correlated internal characteristics with external ones. He believed that certain areas of the head and face were responsible for specific aspects of nature.According to Lavater, the skull and forehead reflect the sphere of the mind; facial muscles, nose and cheeks — the moral and emotional part; mouth and chin — natural, animal qualities. Lavater's theory did not involve all facial features, and he did not describe a systematic method for analyzing faces.THE APPEARANCE OF CRIMINALS

Lombroso identified a number of physical signs ("stigmata"), which, in his opinion, characterize a person endowed with criminal tendencies from birth. These are the irregular shape of the skull, the narrow and sloping forehead (or bifurcated frontal bone), the asymmetry of the face and eye sockets, and the excessively developed jaws. Red-haired criminals are extremely rare. The most common crimes are committed by brunettes and brown-haired men. Brunettes prefer to steal or engage in arson, while brown-haired men are prone to murder. Blondes are sometimes found among rapists and scammers.

FEATURES OF CRIMINALS

"I myself have observed that during thunderstorms, when epileptics have more frequent seizures, prisoners in prison also become more dangerous: they tear their clothes, break furniture, beat attendants," Lombroso wrote. In his opinion, criminals have reduced sensory sensitivity and pain sensitivity. They are unable to realize the immorality of their actions, so they do not know repentance. Lombroso was able to identify the handwriting features of various types of criminals. The handwriting of murderers, robbers and robbers is distinguished by elongated letters, curvilinearity and definiteness of features in the endings of letters. Thieves' handwriting is characterized by expanded letters, without sharp outlines and curved endings.THE NATURE AND LIFESTYLE OF CRIMINALS