Of Animal Heads and Animal Tales

Abstract

Animals played significant roles in Gall’s research program, in which he viewed humans as merely having more complex and better developed brains. Studying lowly animals, barnyard animals, wild animals, and pets helped reveal what makes us human, both behaviorally and with regard to brain development, while providing a natural backdrop on which life can be viewed on a continuum (i.e., a Great Chain of Being, albeit one devoid of supernatural entities). Gall even compared animals to humans with brain injuries and diseases. Further, he was an animal lover who always had pets around him, and he did not hesitate to mention how observing animals, including his pet dogs, birds, and monkeys, helped him discover particular faculties and their locations. He also did everything he could to encourage people to send him stories of exceptional animals and, ideally, their heads or skulls when they died. He did not, however, look favorably on brain lesion experiments with animals, railing against such mutilations as having so many problems that they could not convey clear and reliable information. Nonetheless, he did conduct a few experiments of his own to see if the findings of others, including Pierre Flourens, could be verified.