RT Journal
T1 THe vindication of gall
JF Journal of the American Medical Association
JO Journal of the American Medical Association
YR 1909
FD December 11
VO LIII
IS 24
SP 2011
OP 2011
DO 10.1001/jama.1909.02550240057007
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1909.02550240057007
AB Most physicians know the name of Gall because they have heard of the columns of Gall and Burdach in the spinal cord; but few realize that the Dr. Gall who is thus commemorated is the father of so-called phrenology—that is, the attempt to determine intellectual capacity and mental characteristics from the appearance of the skull—and also the pioneer discoverer of the physiology of the brain. Dr. Bernard Hollander, who is president of the Ethological Society and physician to the British Hospital for Mental Disorders, has spent many years in vindicating the reputation of this great anatomist of the brain from undeserved aspersions and from exaggerated pretensions made by disciples.1 Gall's career illustrates the penalties of being before one's time in knowledge. It is dangerous to discover, before men's minds are prepared for the truth, the circulation of the blood, or that the heart is a muscle, or that the