180 PHYSIOLOGY OF CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



as the liver. This question of the localization of functions in the 

 brain (cerebrum) has been much debated, but the most interesting 

 and important discussions upon the subject belong to the nine- 

 teenth century. About the beginning of the century Franz Joseph 

 Gall, at that time a physician in Vienna, began to teach publicly his 

 well-known system of cranioscopy or, as it was later designated by 

 his chief disciple (Spurzheim) , system of phrenology.* Gall, from his 

 early youth, was possessed with the idea that the different faculties 

 of the mind are mediated through different parts of the brain, that 

 in it we have to deal not with a single, but with a plurality of 

 organs. This belief was in opposition to the current ideas of his 

 times and Gall devoted his entire life to an earnest effort to estab- 

 lish and popularize his views. He and his disciples contributed 

 many very important facts to our knowledge of the finer anatomy 

 of the brain; but, so far as the view of separate organs in the 

 cerebrum is concerned, the methods that he employed, although 

 perhaps the only ones that he could make use of at that time, 

 have since been demonstrated to be fallacious when used as he 

 used them. He conceived that the more developed any given 

 mental quality is the larger will be the organ representing it in 

 the cerebrum, and since the cranium fits closely to the cerebrum 

 the relative prominence of the parts of the cerebrum may be judged 

 by a study of the exterior of the skull. This method of study con- 

 stituted the essential feature of cranioscopy or phrenology, and 

 by observation upon people with particularly marked mental 

 qualities Gall and his disciples supposed that they had located the 

 organs for thirty-five different faculties. While the general idea 

 of this method may be defended, it is obvious that the application 

 of it scientifically, so that positive and demonstrable results can 

 be obtained, is practically impossible. The system of phrenology 

 and its methods quickly fell into disrepute, particularly as it soon 

 became a favorite implement for the use of frauds and charlatans. 

 Gall's ideas in the beginning excited the greatest interest, but it 

 seems that he was never able to convince the majority of the scien- 

 tific men of his day of the conclusiveness of his results. At the 

 time that he was exploiting his doctrines in Paris, where he spent 

 the latter years of his life, Flourens began his celebrated experi- 

 mental work upon the functions of the brain, work which was 

 mainly instrumental in convincing physiologists that the cerebrum 

 is a single organ, functionally equivalent in all of its parts. f Flou- 

 rens's chief experiments were made upon pigeons, and in these 



* Gall (and Spurzheim), "Recherches sur la systeme nerveux en general 

 et sur celui du cerveau en particulier," 1810-1819. 



t Flourens, "Recherches experimentales sur les proprieties et les fonctions 

 du systeme nerveux dans les animaux vertebres," 1824. 



