Anatomie et physiologie du système nerveux en général et du cerveau en particulier. Anatomie et physiologie du système nerveux en général et du cerveau en particulier, avec des observations sur la possibilité de reconnaître plusieurs dispositions intellectuelles et morales de l’homme et des animaux par la configuration de leurs têtes.
Between 18, Flourens wrote a series of reviews critical of Gall’s doctrine and of phrenology in general. The Paris Academy of Sciences, acting on order of the Emperor Bonaparte, asked the French neurophysiologist Jean-Pierre-Marie Flourens (1794 – 1867) to investigate Gall and his controversial views on cerebral localization. He aimed to provide empirical evidence to show that the brain was the undisputed organ of the mind and to identify the fundamental faculties and organs of the brain Gall attempted to correlate physical aspects of the skulls and casts with prominent characteristics of human and animal behaviour or human personality. This doctrine concerning the head, which is talked about with enthusiasm will perhaps cause a few to loose their heads and it leads to materialism, therefore is opposed to the first principles of morals and religion… Emperor Francis of Austria. Gall’s concept regarding the localization of cognitive functions, and that various mental faculties were represented in different places in the brain, was seen by the Austrian government as in conflict with moral and religious views of the unity of the soul and mind. This theory went against the doctrine of brain equipotentiality espoused by Swiss anatomist Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777). Letter from Gall, to Joseph Fr von Retzer
…my purpose is to ascertain the functions of the brain in general, and those of its different parts in particular to show that it is possible to ascertain different dispositions and inclinations by the elevations and depressions upon the head and to present in a clear light the most important consequences which result therefrom to medicine, morality, education, and legislation a word, to the science of human nature. Gall’s ‘organology’ summised that, despite its similarity in appearance, brain tissue was not equipotential but instead was actually made up of many discrete areas that had different and separate functions. It seemed to me that I had never seen this organ before Flourens 1863: 180 I shall never forget the feeling I experienced the first time I saw Gall dissect a brain.