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Technical
Difficulties
But
while many doubted cranioscopy on philosophical or theological
grounds, more secular scientists took issue with Gall's contentions,
as well. Even those who were able to entertain the notion
of cerebral localization intellectually remained unconvinced
because of the lack of scientific evidence.
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The techniques for stimulating the cortex were extremely
gross, say Wozniak. Like they put acid on it for example
or they would poke it, or heat it or something.
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Many
experimenters had already stimulated different regions of
animal brains, looking for region-specific responses. But
the available tools of the day were far from ideal for this
delicate work.
"The
techniques for stimulating the cortex were extremely gross,"
say Wozniak. "Like they put acid on it for example or they
would poke it, or heat it or something. They didn't have the
any of the more sophisticated fine grain electrical stimulation
techniques."
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Until
modern technology let scientists see into living brains,
research depended on injuries and illnesses.
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With
these crude methods, even the most diligent scientists were
unable to obtain evidence of functional localization. "If
you cut through a large amount of tissue," says Wozniak, "You
get diffuse damage to all sorts of different processes. So,
nobody using these techniques had any specific evidence in
favor of the localization in the cortex."
When
Gall began publicly lecturing on cranioscopy in 1796, this
was a conceptual leap many of Gall's contemporaries were not
ready to make.
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Even as phrenology was losing steam, the visceral
evidence provided by the strange case of Phineas Gage
helped solidify the brain's role in personality.
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"Historically,
for hundreds of years -maybe from the medieval period even
- there was the belief that the "mind" and soul could not
be partitioned," says Robert H. Wozniak, professor of Psychology
at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. "It came from a variety
of theological beliefs."
In fact, Gall's ideas so offended the sensibilities of the
day, that Gall was forced to leave his native Austria in 1805.
Gall and his German protégé Spurzheim traveled for two years
before settling in Paris. Ironically, their exile and subsequent
wanderings would only ensure Gall's new science would catch
on all over western Europe and the United States. 
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