An exceptional early (1847) plaster phrenological head, mapped on the theory of dr. Franz Joseph Gall.

Franz Joseph Gall (1758 - 1828) was a neuroanatomist and physiologist who was a pioneer in the study of the localization of mental functions in the brain. Around 1800, he developed "cranioscopy", a method to determine the personality and development of mental and moral faculties on the basis of the external shape of the skull. Cranioscopy («cranium»: skull, «scopos»: vision) was later renamed to phrenology («phrenos»: mind, «logos»: study) by his follower Johann Spurzheim. Gall's phrenological theories and practices were best accepted in England, where the ruling class used it to justify the "inferiority" of its colonial subjects, including the Irish, and then in the USA, where it became very popular from 1820 to 1850.