> Obituary JVotice of Dr. Gasjpar Spurzheim. 359 



tion of the brain itself still remained imperfect untill 1804, when Spurz- 

 heim became his associate, and undertook especially the anatomical 

 department. From that time, in their public as well as private de- 

 monstrations of the brain, Spurzheim always made the dissections, 

 and Gall explained them to the audience. 



" The great interest which was excited by these lectures at Vien- 

 na, and throughout Germany, roused the fears of that inveterate ene- 

 my of all innovations, the government of Austria. An imperial de- 

 cree, which prohibited all private lectures unless by special permis- 

 sion, silenced the two teachers, and induced them, in 1805, to quit 

 Vienna. They travelled together through Germany, explaining and 

 demonstrating their physiological discoveries in the principal universi- 

 ties and cities; particularly in Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Halle, Hei- 

 delberg and Munic. Their anatomical demonstrations excited eve- 

 rywhere great interest and applause. The great German anatomist 

 and physiologist, Reit, before whom Gall and Spurzheim dissected a 

 brain in 1805, at Halle, said to Professor BischofF, who wrote an 

 exposition of their doctrine, 'I have seen in the anatomical demon- 

 strations of the brain, made by Gall, more than I thought that a man 

 could discover in his whole life.' Their peculiar physiological doc- 

 trines on the organization of the brain being adapted to various innate 

 qualities of the mind, found many opposers, but also some warm ad- 

 herents, and gave rise to a great number of publications in which the 

 subject was discussed.* 



"In the year 1807, Gall and Spurzheim went to Paris, where they 

 demonstrated their theory of the brain in the presence of Cuvier, 

 then the chief of the anatomical department of the French Institute, 

 and before many other distinguished men, and learned societies. 

 Meanwhile their collections of skulls and casts of heads, had much 

 increased, so that they were able amply to illustrate their doctrines 

 of special parts of the head, as indicative of mental powers. Cuvier 

 showed himself at first well disposed toward the new doctrine, and 

 expressed his approbation of its general features. But in the year 

 1808, when Gall and Spurzheim delivered their memoir, containing 

 an account of their scientific labors, to the French Institute, Cuvier 

 was appointed to draw up the report, in which he seemed to labor 



*The first expositions of the doctrines of Gal! and Spurzheim were published in 

 Germany between the years 1802 and 1805, by Froriep and Walter, Bischoff, Kno- 

 blauch, Bloede ; and in Paris, in 1806, by Demangeon. 



