Dr gall

 Franz Joseph Gall () the originator of what later became phrenology.

Franz Joseph Gall was born in the Swabian village of Tiefenbronn near Pforzheim, which was later in the German Grand-Dutchy of Baden, the sixth of ten children of Roman Catholic merchant parents.

Although originally intended for the priesthood, and first educated by his priest uncle, Gall studied medicine in the French city of Strasbourg in There Gall was introduced to the comparative anatomy of Johann Hermann () who taught that there was a close relationship between Man and apes. In Gall continued his medical studies in Vienna where he was most impressed by his teacher, the well-known physician Maximilian Stoll ().

Stoll emphasized the collection of many empirical facts from clinical observation before drawing general conclusions, a theme which would permanently become part of Gall's practice and rhetoric. Gall received the doctor of medicine in and became a successful, well-connected, private physician in Vienna. He married for the first time in Gall was very proud and independent; he even rejected an offer in to become the personal physician to emperor Franz II - merely to preserve his independence.

Gall's character was not the least important ingredient in forming his system. His three main passions were, as Ackerknecht writes: "science, gardening, and women."

By Gall was convinced that he had discovered localized regions of the cerebral cortex where innate universal faculties resided. Gall called these regions "organs", a term which was by then common in Vienna for localized brain modules.

The particular faculties of Gall's psychology and organology reflect the cases in the asylum and in local prisons from which he made many of his first generalizations, viz.

Hermann von helmholtz Phrenology retained popularity throughout the nineteenth century, and societies furthering its practice still exist today. What man of feeling, for morality and religion will be able to read this without amazement? With his ideas of localization, Gall was the first person to create a theory of localized mental illness. Frantz, Ferdinand.

Mord/Würgsinn (faculty of murder) and Diebsinn (faculty of larceny) and from peculiarities in his own patients.

Gall began to collect human and animal skulls and wax moulds of brains from around in order to study the development of the cranial contours with the characteristic behaviours associated with a species of animal, or a well-known general or robber.

His collection of skulls, as well as plaster casts of heads and skulls, became so extensive, and his energy in collecting them so conspicuous that he became a local celebrity. By the collection consisted of human skulls and plaster casts.

Gall called his new system "organology" and "Schädellehre" (doctrine of the skull) and later simply "the physiology of the brain".

Gall is justifiably remembered as a highly innovative brain anatomist.

Franz josef gall biography pdf The spinal cord was, Gall argued, arranged in the same way; and he noticed its segmental structure and successive swellings. His division of the mind and its organ into separate compartments was anathema to those who followed Descartes in claiming that the mind is indivisible. Franzblau, Abraham Norman. He was the sixth child of a merchant.

Although he had no formal anatomical qualifications, Gall made the cerebral cortex (the thin outer grey layers of the cerebrum, in German it is called the brain's 'rind') the centre of attention in place of the ventricles. Since Galen () the ventricles had been treated as the most important parts of the brain and the cortex was considered only a protective layer.

See: Images of the brain from Gall & Spurzheim's Atlas

Even in , the same year that Gall began to lecture on his system, the highly respected German anatomist Samuel Thomas Soemmerring () published his Über das Organ der Seele (On the Organ of the Soul). In the second part Soemmerring tried to locate the sensoriumcommune (or "the soul") in the intraventricular cerebral spinal fluid.

Like Descartes' theory that the soul acted through the pineal gland, Soemmerring's idea was never very well received.

Franz josef gall biography Gall developed his views in public lectures and demonstrations in Vienna between and , when the emperor, in a personal letter, forbade these activities, on the ground that his doctrines were conducive to materialism, immorality, and atheism. In he spelled out the main argument of his major work in a letter to Baron von Retzer. Frantzich, Stephen E. Lecturing to most of the crowned heads of Europe, in all the major universities in Germany as well as before science societies, as in Kiel, or in posh hotels, Gall covered a large expanse of social as well as geographic territory.

While his contemporary imagined a locus for the influence of a soul, Gall taught that psychological phenomena take place in specific regions in the cerebral cortex while soul and mind were otherwise ignored. Gall described the nervous system as composed of a multitude of independent nervous centres. His assignation of specific psychological functions to otherwise undifferentiated regions of cortex and the cerebellum is the modern starting point for cerebral localization.

Although having been independently postulated many times in the past, localization has been continuously applied and modified ever since Gall, and he is now seen as the founder of cerebral localization.

Gall developed an innovative method for dissecting the brain which revealed the developmental relationships between its parts.

Instead of slicing into the entire brain from above as other anatomists of the time, Gall dissected from below, following the medulla oblongata (the brain stem) upwards into the brain, tracing out the fanning fibres which reach into all corners of the brain. Gall claimed to have discovered that the nerves flowed not to a centre, but outwards in all directions, and hence there was no central control centre but instead diffuse and localized modules throughout the surface of the brain.

Gall described the brain as the continuation of the spinal cord and claimed to have discovered that the brain is made of "bundles of threads" rather than a pudding-like substance. His claims to be able to be able to separate these fibres were highly controversial- partly for the reason that it appeared to refute any possibility for a single centre of control.

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Gall appears to have been the first anatomist to have paid close attention to the windings of the cerebrum (the gyri) which had hitherto been ignored and inaccurately represented as arbitrary.

With his ideas of localization, Gall was the first person to create a theory of localized mental illness. For Gall, mental illness was brain illness.

Gall spoke for a more gentle handling of the insane wherever he went. In addition, Gall was the first to push the distinction between criminal responsibility and crime as the result of somatic defects. Gall reacted strongly against what he perceived as the French sensualist philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvétius' () extreme belief in learning to the exclusion of congenital abilities.

In what way was franz gall correct

What does the phrase "function is localized" mean in the context of brain anatomy?

Franz joseph gall later named his phrenology theory to

Franz joseph gall contribution to criminology

Gall emphasized the opposite and was therefore often accused of fatalism and determinism. In one sense Gall's efforts were in effect a drive to displace an existing vocabulary for discussing psychological behaviour with his own.

Gall's system first appeared in print in December when one of his letters was published in the main literary journal of the Holy Roman Empire, Derneue Teutsche Merkur, edited by the poet Christoph Martin Wieland.

Wieland included a note with the letter assuring his readers that all would find Gall's system of importance, as Dr. Gall was a special and uniquely qualified authority. Indeed, Gall was believed for many years to posses a unique authority partly from his emphasis on his many observations in the Viennese medical institutions and because of his rhetoric of relying on Nature to bring him to conclusions.

Franz josef gall biography wikipedia Moreover, phrenology first popularized the modern concept of cerebral localization of function, although it made no specific contribution to the concept. The first 2 volumes were coauthored by J. In , Gall was forced to leave Austria along with his assistant Spurzheim and embarked on a lecture tour across various European countries. Third, Gall proposed that the brain was not a homogeneous unity, but an aggregate of cerebral organs "faculties" with discrete functions.

During phrenology's later career, the claim that the system was founded on untold numbers of observations never faded, though time and place were forgotten.

An unexpected event changed Gall's system from a Viennese curiosity to an international subject. For six years Gall gave public lectures on his system in his home during which time three German pamphlets were published on the subject of Gall's system by and there was a single mentioning of him in a British periodical.

Gall planned to publish a large multi-volume work on his system entitled Lehre über die Verrichtungen des Hirns, und über die Möglichkeit, die Anlagen mehrerer Geistes- und Gemuthseigenschaften aus dem Bau des Kopfes, und des Schedels des Menschen und der Thiere zu erkennen (Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain, and the possibility of recognizing the tendency of several properties of mind from the structure of the heads and skulls of humans and animals).

Before his work could be published Gall's lectures were banned by the emperor Franz II in December The text of the decree provides several reasons for the ban: the enthusiasm with which Gall's system is discussed, that some might get carried away, the attendance of ladies, and that perhaps the system might lead to materialism and thereby go against the "the first principles of morality and religion".

The ban also proscribed any publication of Gall's system.

On 6 March , Gall, then forty-seven, the twenty-nine year old Spurzheim as Gall's famulus and dissectionist, Gall's servant, his wax modeller, two monkeys, and the greater portion of Gall's collection of skulls and casts left for Berlin on what Gall intended to be a journey of some months duration.

 Gall and his craniological system soon became an international sensation. From Berlin Gall received invitations to lecture in further cities, universities and courts throughout Europe causing him to continually extend his tour. Gall and his motley company eventually travelled to more than fifty cities throughout Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and France- all the while steering clear of the battles of the Napoleonic wars.

(see map of the tour) With very few exceptions, Gall was a great success everywhere he went. Lecturing to most of the crowned heads of Europe, in all the major universities in Germany as well as before science societies, as in Kiel, or in posh hotels, Gall covered a large expanse of social as well as geographic territory. Gall's success may not have been due solely to his own style and system, but to the allegiances and interests of his audiences.

The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, March, reported:

Johann Gottlieb Walter () in his etwas über Hn.

Dr. Gall's Hirnschädel-Lehre; Dem Berliner Publikum mitgetheilt. (Berlin, , ) wrote of the fears that Gall's system was a dangerous form of determinism or fatalism:

After meeting some of the most prestigious learned men of Europe, Gall arrived in Paris in October where he received the most enthusiastic and perhaps also the most profitable reception so far.

Franz josef gall biography death: Mankind must revolt when it hears that a preacher of fatalistic theories promulgates teaching which would be abhorred even by the most savage people without morals and religion. Tenon et at. Spurzheim, J. However, the questions which he asked have remained leading topics in neurology, psychology, and ethology.

The presence of the quasi materialist ideologues in Paris made Gall feel quite at home. Although originally intending to continue his tour, Gall made Paris and its environs his home until his death in See my bibliography of Gall's works.

See my article on Gall: 'The authority of human nature: the Schdellehre of Franz Joseph Gall', BJHS,

On Gall see also the following online texts:

See also portraits of:Johann Gaspar Spurzheim - The Combe brothers