This collection consists of primary source articles from the 1800s on marriage, parenting, everyday news, diseases and curatives, crime, wearing the beard, temperance, tobacco, solitary indulgence, India rubber, humor, and much more. Historians will appreciate period reports on the Charge of the Light Brigade, the caning of Senator Sumner, an attack on the President, John Brown Jr, the attack on Lawrence Kansas, and a large chapter on bleeding Kansas. The monthly American Phrenological Journal was part phrenology education/justification, part newspaper, part history book, part social activism, part life science, part sex manual, and part Popular Mechanics. This added to the popularity of the Journals at the time. It was an interesting read. The bleeding Kansas chapter includes "real time" news articles about the Kansas Emigration Society of Massachusetts, immigration, the attack on Gov Reeder, fighting between proslavers and free staters, the wounding of Sheriff Jones, 1856 elections, the attack on Lawrence and the burning of the Free-State Hotel, the appointment of Gov John Geary, an attack on Grasshopper Falls, Dred Scott, and more. The American Phrenological Journal was also a newspaper of its day. The "News of the Day" chapter includes fires in California, settlement in Liberia, an attack on President Pierce, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the caning of Senator Sumner, the Mexican rebellion, camels for the United States Army, Dr. Livingstone, a steamboat explosion, the wine harvest in Herman MO, a fugitive slave case, the Missouri legislature, and more. If you are a hypochondriac, a smoker, or drinker, then this book is for you. It contains articles on magnetic disease, curing bad habits, night eating, bowel-action, curing a toothache, curing a cold, the health benefits of wearing a beard, the science of going to bed, magnetism in Cholera, sitting upright and more. There's even an entire chapter devoted to temperance and anti-tobacco. You know who you are! The "Persons of Note" chapter includes phrenological and biographical descriptions for John Brown Jr, Kit Carson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Benton, Florence Nightingale, U. S. Grant, Blind Tom, President Andrew Johnson, Charles Dickens, and Frederick Douglas. This collection of articles also covers a wide range of miscellaneous and life topics: murders, clairvoyance and lawyers, India rubber, where to find a wife, marrying blood relations, selecting a life-mate, out of body phenomena, the choice of occupation, excessive and perverted Amativeness, matrimonial excess, dull children, the Octagon home, what physical qualities men love in women, legal advice, and more.