Franz Joseph Gall - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Biography

Initially tried by the priesthood, Gall finally chooses to study the Médecine and begins his formation with the Université from Strasbourg. In 1758, it continues its studies at the university of Vienna, in Austria where he becomes the pupil of Van Swieten. Appointed professor, it concentrates his studies on the Cerveau and more particularly concerning the relations between the grey matter and the white matter which compose the Cerveau.

Neuroanatomiste shining, it will invent a method of Dissection brain which forces the admiration of another doctor and famous biologist of the time, Marie Jean Pierre Flourens, however large rival of the theses of Gall. Indeed, against the Catholic church which condemns the idea that the human Esprit can have a material anchoring and against number of scientist of its time not convinced by these speculations, Gall develops a theory localisationist according to which mental faculties are specifically dependant on unquestionable part of the brain. This ambition to want to bind the anatomy to the function within the brain thus make of it a precursor of the cognitive Neurosciences but it is as a father of a new science that its name will remain famous.

Indeed, towards 1800, Gall concludes starting from various observations that the morphology of the Crâne seems to reflect certain features of character. It is thus struck by the fact that its best students have the particularly protuberant Yeux. Gall concludes from it that the deformations on the surface of cranium are due to the pressure of the bodies of the brain related to such or such mental faculty. Those at which these bodies are very developed will thus present a bump to the surface of cranium compared to this area of the brain. This direct link that there would be between mental faculties, cerebral anatomy and morphology of cranium pose the bases of a discipline which it baptized “cranioscopy” and which one of its disciples, Johann Caspar Spurzheim renamed “Phrénologie” in 1810.

Quickly, Gall came from there to generalize this idea at the point to determine about thirty bodies this type: body of the physical Love, the Friendship, the Metaphysical Spirit , etc This theory whimsical is of course erroneous, but it was one of the first to allot a localization to the various functions of the Cerveau. Independently of the accuracy of phrenology, the idea of a cerebral Localisationnisme will remain discussed during a few years, certain researchers partisan of a cerebral Holisme , refusing to admit that the brain can be separate in units functioning from/to each other separately.

Constrained to leave Austria of François II, Gall exiles himself in France where its revolutionary ideas seem to better agree with the political breath of the time. Nevertheless, the Academy of Science condemns its work for their lack of scientificity, which does not prevent Gall from knowing a certain fame in the Parisian intellectual mediums. But it is in England and especially with the the United States that its theses will find the best echo, in particular thanks to publicity that in fact Johann-Caspar Spurzheim, an assistant of long time of Gall, but also because these theories are used to with it to justify the natural inferiority of the colonized people .

The Museum of the man in Paris still preserves in its reserves of craniums testifying to the passion of the 19th century century for phrenology where labels indicate cerebral surfaces under the terms of “innate Need to be good”, “Charitable and mésirécordieux”, “Perception of the laws of the Harmony”, “Love of the lucre” or “Need for Admiration or tendency to Faith”. The phrenological searchs for Gall in spite of their absence of empirical reality will open the way with work relating to the bonds between the surfaces of the brain and mental faculties, in particular with Paul Broca which will determine the Cerebral localization Langage articulated.

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