Louis Kuhne's Facial Diagnosis (Gesichtsausdruckskunde)
period treatise · 1897
LINK
SUMMARY
The English edition of Kuhne's facial-diagnosis manual, translated and published by August F. Reinhold, 'Manager of the Reinhold Institute of Water Cure of New York City' (read directly from the title page of the Internet Archive scan louiskuhnesfaci00kuhn, 2026-06-12). Used in this case as the period primary source for the surrogate-diagnostic method: Kuhne held that internal disease could be read from the face and body, the title page describing facial diagnosis as 'essentially an ante-diagnosis, enabling us both to foresee and forestall any ailment.' The book's own contents page (viewed directly) names the doctrine's vocabulary: 'Variations in the Shape of the Body Resulting from Deposits of Foreign Matter,' 'Front,' 'Side,' 'Back,' and 'Universal Encumbrance,' 'Removal of Encumbrance,' 'Increasing the Vitality,' and a chapter on the 'Relation of Facial Diagnosis to Phrenology.' These ground the foreign-matter / encumbrance doctrine, the vitality-restoration aim, and the kinship the book itself draws to phrenology. The Library of Congress holding record (item 06038744) states the work is in the public domain. As the practitioner's own work, its diagnostic claims are treated as the doctrine asserted, not as validated method.
NOTES
Louis Kuhne’s Facial Diagnosis is the English edition of his Gesichtsausdruckskunde, translated with notes by August F. Reinhold and published in New York in 1897. The title page, viewed directly from the Internet Archive scan, presents facial diagnosis as “essentially an ante-diagnosis, enabling us both to foresee and forestall any ailment,” and identifies the translator-publisher as the Manager of the Reinhold Institute of Water Cure of New York City, evidence of the commercial water-cure network the method travelled through. The book’s contents page names the doctrine plainly: chapters on “Variations in the Shape of the Body Resulting from Deposits of Foreign Matter,” on front, side, back, and “Universal Encumbrance,” on the “Removal of Encumbrance” and “Increasing the Vitality,” and on the “Relation of Facial Diagnosis to Phrenology.” This case uses the book as the period source for the facial-diagnosis claim and the foreign-matter / encumbrance framework, and notes that the book itself relates the method to phrenology, a discarded pseudoscience. The Library of Congress holds the work (item 06038744) and records it as being in the public domain.