Popular Science

		Spurzheim died on a lecture tour in the United States and is buried in Cambridge's Mount Auburn Cemetary..

Spurzheim, meanwhile, had become skeptical about science and medicine. Rather than practice medicine, Spurzheim devoted his entire career to lecturing on craniology. By 1813, Gall and Spurzheim were no longer collaborators and, in 1815, Spurzheim published "Physiognomical System," which detailed his version of cranioscopy, repackaged under the name "phrenology." Spurzheim took his show on the road to Great Britain and, eventually, the United States in 1832.

Lay Americans proved particularly susceptible to the allure of phrenology. Entrepreneurs Orson and Lorenzo Fowler were particularly intrigued by the concept and became the major force in popularizing phrenology in the United States. The Fowler brothers published books and organized lectures on the topic, then cornered the market on charts, illustrations and other tools of the trade. Eventually, the Fowlers - with their partner Samuel Wells - even began training phrenologists, thereby ensuring there would be a substantial market for their products and services.

"It's not that Gall is the first person to argue that the brain is the organ of the mind, but that Gall is more influential than anyone else in getting that idea pretty widely accepted," says Wozniak..

Lead by the Fowlers and Wells, many Americans attempted to use phrenology in social applications. Phrenology, they claimed, could help people find a compatible spouse, predict a child's academic ability, rehabilitate criminals, diagnose and cure the insane.

"The impact on the culture was huge," says Wozniak. "Phrenology was a gigantic enterprise in 1860's,70's and 80's. Americans have always been interested in people who offered the possibility of helping them get to know themselves better and grow in a positive direction, make use of natural potential."

Eventually, science caught up with Phrenology. The neuroanatomist Flourens- a long-time critic of Gall's cranioscopy- at last was able to gather evidence against it. Flourens removed the section of brain Gall assigned to "amativeness," (the sex drive) in animals. Following the procedure, the animals showed no change whatsoever in their sexual behavior. Additionally, Flourens' further analysis of Gall's data showed no correlation between bumps on the skull and personality.

Though Gall's belief that the skull reflected the characteristics of the brain had been proved wrong, he is still remembered as the pioneering scientist who helped usher in the notion of functional localization. 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. Later luminaries such as Paul Broca - who isolated the part of the brain that controls speech in 1862 - would be influenced by Gall's work for decades to come.

"It's not that Gall is the first person to argue that the brain is the organ of the mind, but that Gall is more influential than anyone else in getting that idea pretty widely accepted," says Wozniak. "From the 1840's to the 1860's, you would be hard put to read anybody writing on the physiology of the mind which didn't in some way or another refer to Gall."
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Learn more about phrenology:
The Histroy of Phrenology on the Web
Phrenology: the History of Brain Localization
Phrenology History of a Pseudoscience