In partnership with

Past posts live here. Come 👋🏼 at me on FB, IG, Threads & Bluesky

All in Your Head: Franz Gall, the Fowler Brothers, and the Science That Wasn’t.

I believe a central question lurks in the depths of every person, and our lives unfold in pursuit of the answer. For some, the question surfaces fully articulated; for others it remains mumbled, tangled in the soft algae of their subconscious.

In the 18^th Century, a young German boy named Franz Gall, seemed born in possession of a question that began in childhood and ended only in death: Why are people different from one another?

He began from the outside in, studying the externals: his siblings features, the people in his town, his parents.

Soon, peculiarities began to stand out. His classmates, for instance—some had large foreheads, others had small ones. He began looking for commonalities. The boys with more pronounced features seemed preternaturally good at memorization, while those with strangely shaped skulls struck Gall as linguistically gifted. 

Coincidence? He didn’t think so.

Gall believed there was a connection there, between the shape of a skull and the capacity of the mind it held.

Born into a world of rudimentary biological knowledge, Gall’s thinking, and tools, were aligned with the early science of the time—based on description and observation, not experiments.

In 18th-century Europe, the idea that the external form reflected inner reality was not a shallow conceit, nor was it unusual.

Gall’s fascination with skulls, anatomy and the nervous system led him to medical school, where he studied under the french physician and naturalist Johann Hermann and Austrian physician Maximilian Stoll whose detailed and systematic approach to his patients history and symptoms left a lasting imprint that natural observation was, above all else, the essential ingredient of science. 

It was there, in medical school, that Gall studied the brains of dissected animals and the details of a human skull—the bumps, ridges, and cavities uniquely different from skull to skull—that he slowly began forming what would become his lasting legacy: Organology AKA Schädellehre (doctrine of the skull).

Rolls off the tongue!

And what if—here’s where Gall’s revolutionary idea emerged—the bumps and ridges of a person’s skull provided a map to an individuals psychological landscape, to their characteristics, personality traits and more?

He divided the brain into 27 distinct sections ranging from mechanical ability to love of property, from a talent for poetry to what he chillingly termed the “tendency to murder.” 

He believed that larger areas of the brain exerted pressure on the skull, causing bumps on the head. In short, you could read a person’s head and make educated assumptions about their faculties and therefore, their character. It was a simple, seductive idea—and one that caught fire.

Can’t you just smell the eugenics?

Gall’s idea of localization (while heavily influenced by his professors and readings) made Gall the first person to create a theory of mental illness as a brain disease.

The implications of Gall’s claims were staggering: the skull was a blueprint to the human mind, accessible through tactile observation.

It was both a science and a promise—a way to understand ourselves and others without the messy uncertainties of the mind. Gall’s theory spread rapidly through Europe, embraced by both scientists and the public. And yet, as seductive as phrenology was, its scientific rigor was shaky at best, and its subtext deplorable.

The heart of phrenology (which was a term that came from the British naturalist Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster in 1815, and wasn’t used in Gall’s lifetime) and other grand ideas, was not destined to remain in circles of privilege.

As H.H. “Henry” Goddard did with Alfred Binet’s first IQ Test, two upstate brothers did to Gall, transforming a science practiced in elite circles into a popular phenomenon. 

Orson Squire Fowler and Lorenzo Niles Fowler came from a modest farming upstate family but, like Gall, were fascinated by the idea of unlocking human potential through skull readings.

At Amherst College, the brothers discovered phrenology and quickly became its most fervent evangelists. Who wouldn’t be drawn to a science that offered both a roadmap to understanding oneself and others, and a tool for self-improvement and social advancement?

The Fowlers saw in phrenology not just a scientific theory, but a business opportunity, and the timing was excellent. 

To read the rest of this piece, you must upgrade.

Subscribe to How to Live to read our content