He was convinced that pronounced features or the character of a person had a strict morphologic correlate leading to a hypertrophy of the corresponding Sorafenib Tosylate cortical area and the skull beyond [4]. He believed also that in reverse by palpation of the external bony bumbs on the hypertrophy of specific functional cortical areas and thus on the personality and character of the person can be concluded. Phrenology spread with Spurzheim to UK and to the United States and became an amusing subject in the salons of the upper class society in the first half of the 19th century. Despite the fact that from our present scientific point of view this theory is obsolete, it has to be admitted in favour of Gall that he was one of the first physicians who again underlined the significance of the brain and who initiated further study on the localization of the higher cognitive brain functions.

However at the academic level, the location of brain functions in particular the higher cognitive abilities remained an unsolved issue in that time. Over time an increasing opposition against phrenology arouse from scientists in particular by Flourens [3] who was asked by the French academy of sciences to investigate scientifically the propositions of Gall’s theory. Challenged by Gall’s assumptions and due to increasing withdrawing from a romantic natural philosophy toward measurable objective science of nature, an intense study of cortical functions with anatomical, histological, and electrophysiological methods started to develop in the mid 19th century.

It is not surprising therefore Anacetrapib that also pioneers of neurosurgery among others such as Victor Horsley (1857�C1916) participated in this research themselves and investigated experimentally the localization of cognitive functions. Figure 1 Gall’s phrenology: the cortex is subdivided in several independent areas with particular functions of cognition and behavior. The first breakthrough in favour of the localization theory was the observations of the French anatomist, surgeon, and anthropologist Paul Broca (1824�C1880) who was able to demonstrate that patients with a severe speech disturbance have a lesion in their frontoopercular cortical area in the left dominant hemisphere. First, he described this finding, 1861 after dissection of the brain of a patient known as Tan who died in the hospital where Broca was working as an appointed surgeon. During his life time this patient suffered from a severe speech disturbance and was able only to say the word Tan [5]. In the following years Broca confirmed his initial result on additional 12 patients [6]. His findings were supported in London by the neurologist John Hughlings Jackson (1835�C1911) who published a similar case as Broca (1864) [7].