Pasqual Pinon (1889–1929), The Two-Headed Mexican

Photograph from 1917, Sells Floto Circus.

vintage postcard

Raoul Hausmann

Postcard to IK Bonset (Theo van Doesburg's alter ego) of rival theorist Herwarth Walden

1921

A Crested Quail (Either a Gambel's Quail or California Quail)
-image originally from a wildlife encyclopedia found via the internet.

Set of sixty miniature heads used in phrenology, Manchester, England, 1831

Wooden case containing sixty small phrenological heads made by the phrenologist William Bally of Dublin, Ireland, to illustrate the theories of phrenology promoted by the Viennese physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828). Gall proposed that the contours of the skull followed the brain's shape, with each region responsible for an aspect of personality or behaviour. Feeling the lumps was like reading the mind. He called his system organology, but it later became known as phrenology, derived from the Greek word 'phren' for mind. Phrenology never achieved the status of an accredited science, although the principle that many functions are localised in the brain is now widely accepted.

from-http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/I046/10314278.aspx

Phrenology originated with Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828), a German physician, assisted by his colleague, Johann Kaspar Spurzheim (1809-72). Phrenologists believed that the shape and size of various areas of the brain (and therefore the overlying skull) determined personality. Gall and Spurzheim eventually disagreed and went on to promote rival systems of phrenology. These heads are numbered according to Spurzheim’s classification. The heads may have been used to teach phrenology but were probably made as a general reference collection. A wide range of different heads are present. For instance, head number 54 is that of a scientific man; head number 8 is recorded as the head of an ‘idiot’. The heads were made by William Bally, who studied under Spurzheim from 1828 onwards.

from- http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=5000

Australopithecus Africanus (southern ape of Africa), as reconstructed by paleoartist John Gurche.

Australopithecus Africanus lived about 3.3 to 2.1 million years ago.The first skull (the Taung Child) was found in 1924 and it took more than 20 years for the scientific community to widely accept Australopithecus Africanus as a member of the human family tree.  Often found alongside animal bones, Australopithecus africanus was once considered a “killer ape.”  Now we know that members of this early human species were sometimes eaten by predators.  Living together in groups helped these early humans protect themselves.  This reconstruction by Gurche is based on Sts 5 and 53Sts.

  

  - Sts5 was nicknamed Mrs. Ples (although the skull is now thought to belong to a male) and it was discovered in 1947.

- Dynamite once was used for excavating sites to speed up the process and Sts 5 was blown in two at the time of its extraction from the breccia (a cement-like rock).

Smithsonian Institute's Human Origin Program

Lonesome George

The last known individual of the Pinta Island Tortoise, subspecies Geochelone nigra abingdoni.

 Died June 24th,2012

Sycosis
A Practical treatise on diseases of skin
By John Vietch Shoemaker, 1890

Gummatous Syphilide, with ulceration and necrosis of frontal bone (from Nature)

A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Skin. John V. Shoemaker, 1892

ROSACEA.
Acne rosacea, brandy or wine nose.

-A chronic inflammation of the skin of the face, more especially of the nose, cheeks, and chin, characterized by the presence of diffuse redness, dilated blood-vessels, and inflammatory papules and pustules, and ending in hypertrophy of the integument of the part."

Illustrated Skin Diseases- An Atlas and Text-Book With Special Reference To Modern Diagnosis and the Most Approved Methods Of Treatment- By William S. Gottheil
Second Edition, 1902

Impetigo Contagiosa

"Definition.- An acute inflammatory contagious disease, marked by the appearance of one or more isolated vesicles or pustules, drying up into yellow adherent crusts."

Illustrated Skin Diseases- An Atlas and Text-Book With Special Reference To Modern Diagnosis and the Most Approved Methods Of Treatment- By William S. Gottheil
Second Edition, 1902

Ray Milland

X, The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963) 

Heads 

by David Osborn
Bantam Books 1985

cover artist unknown