How the racist study of skulls gripped Victorian Britain’s scientists

Illustration of a skull, viewed from the left side, showing the principal craniometric points. From Gerrish's Text-book of Anatomy (1902) Frederick Henry Gerrish (1845-1920), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The recent publication of the University of Edinburgh’s Review of Race and History has drawn attention to its “skull room”: a collection of 1,500 human craniums procured for study in the 19th century.

Craniometry, the study of skull measurements, was widely taught in medical schools across Britain, Europe, and the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries.