COMBE, GEORGE Scottish phrenologist, was born in Edinburgh on Oct. 21, 1788. After attending Edinburgh high school and university he entered a lawyer's office in 1804, and in 1812 began to practise on his own account. In 1817 his first es say on phrenology was published in the Scots Magazine; these and other papers were published in 1819 in book form as Essays on Phrenology, which in later editions became A System of Phren ology. In 182o he helped to found the Phrenological Society, which in 1823 began to publish a Phrenological Journal. By his lectures and writings he attracted public attention to the subject on the continent of Europe and in America, as well as at home; and a long discussion with Sir William Hamilton in 1827-28 excited general interest.
His most popular work, The Constitution of Man, was published in 1828. In 1838 he visited America and spent about two years lec turing on phrenology, education and the treatment of the criminal classes. On his return in 184o he published his Moral Philosophy, and in the following year his Notes on the United States of North America. In 1842 he delivered, in German, a course of 22 lectures on phrenology in the university of Heidelberg, and he travelled much in Europe, enquiring into the management of schools, prisons and asylums. He married in 1833 Cecilia Siddons, a daughter of the great actress. He was engaged in revising the ninth edition of The Constitution of Man when he died at Moor Park, Farnham, on Aug. 14, 1858.