GALL, gal, FRANZ JOSEPH (1758-1828). The founder of phrenology,born at Tiefenbrann, Baden. He studied medicine at Strassburg and Vienna, and settled in the latter place as a practicing phy sician. He became known by the publication of his Philosophisch-medizinische Untersuchungen fiber Watur und Kunst ins gesunden und kranken Zu stande des Menschen (1791). But he acquired a much more extensive reputation by his lectures on the structure and functions of the brain, which he began to deliver in 1796. His views were so subversive of received doctrines on the subject of mind that the lectures were prohibited in 1802 by the Austrian Government. Along with his pupil, Spurzheim (q.v.), who became his associate in 1804, Gall quitted Vienna in 1805, and during his travels through Germany, Holland, Sweden, and Switzerland, expounded his views in many of the universities and prin cipal cities. In 1807 he settled as a physician in Paris, and there began lecturing and writing for the propagation of his opinions. On March 14, 1808, he and Spurzheim presented to the Insti tute of France a memoir of their discoveries, on which a committee of the members of that body (including Pinel, Portal, and Cuvier) drew up an unfavorable report. Gall and Spurzheim
thereupon published their memoir; with a reply to the report, in a volume entitled Recherches sur le systeme nerveux en general et sur celtti du cerveau en particulier (1809). This was followed by their larger work, Anatomie et physiologie du systeme nerveux (1810-19), with an atlas of 100 plates; but the two phrenologists having parted in 1813, the name of Gall alone is prefixed to volumes iii. and iv., and it alone is borne by a reprint of the physiological portion of the work, entitled Sur les fonctions du cerveau, et sur celles de chacune de ses parties (1825). In answer to accusations of materialism and fatal ism brought against his system, Gall had early published a part of the work under the title Des dispositions inners de Mime et de l'esprit (1812). He continued to practice medicine and pursue his researches at Montrouge till his death. For a discussion of his ideas, see PHRENOLOGY.