Research topic: Francis Joseph Gall

Francis Joseph Gall 1758-1828, Austrian anatomist and founder of phrenology. He devoted most of his life to a minute study of the nervous system, especially the brain. With the collaboration of a favorite pupil, John Caspar Spurzheim (1776-1832), he incorporated his research into a four-volume work and atlas that appeared from 1810 to 1819. Gall demonstrated that the white matter of the brain consists of nerve fibers, and he launched the doctrine of localization in parts of the brain of various mental processes. Derided for his later involvement with the pseudoscience of phrenology , he left... Read more