The theory has contributed to medicine because its basic premise is that mental functions are localized in areas of the brain.

Holtzman, Geoffrey S. (December 16, 2015). "When Phrenology Was Used in Court: Lessons in Neuroscience from the 1834 Trial of a 9-year-old". Slate. New York. Archived from the original on May 16, 2021 . Retrieved April 4, 2021. Though phrenology had plenty of doubters — and was sometimes horrifyingly used to promote white supremacy — this medical craze did actually touch on some truths about how brains work. Combe, a student of Spurzheim, developed a way to type three classes of people according to their criminal responsibility. The first of these classes consisted of those who had large moral and intellectual organs, with organs of lower propensities being more moderate in size. Venable, Malcolm (October 2002). "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems". Vibe. New York. 10 (10): 124–128 . Retrieved May 24, 2019– via Google Books.Gall, “Schreiben über seinen bereits geendigten Prodromus…”; Wegner, Franz Joseph Gall; van Wyhe, Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism. Cerebral physiology” was a euphemism for phrenology, a now-discredited pseudo-science. But make no mistake: in its day, phrenology was on the cutting edge of brain science. Leaney, Enda (2006). "Phrenology in Nineteenth-Century Ireland". New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua. 10 (3): 24–42. doi: 10.1353/nhr.2006.0058. JSTOR 20558078. S2CID 144035028. Greenblatt argues that phrenology was popular in Britain in the 1820s and 1830s because it seemed to offer a practical approach to a major social problem. These produce ideas of relation or reflect. They minister to the direction and gratification of all the other powers:

Young believed that Gall was “extremely predisposed” to see a coronal prominence or large cerebral organ when he already had evidence of behavior. These people, according to Combe, were pathologically habitual criminals, moral patients in need of restraint, but not punishment (Lucie, 2007; Morin, 2014). With this most phrenologists concurred: however underdeveloped a mental organ was, the criminal still possessed the ability to make a moral decision. Even at the height of its popularity in the early 1800s, phrenology was controversial and is now considered discredited by modern science. By the 1840s, pseudoscience was mostly discredited as a scientific theory.Believing that an individual’s faculties could be modified over the course of a lifetime, Spurzheim modified the strict deterministic view of people and introduced the potential for treatment and change. These traits, however, were still heritable (Morin, 2014). Applications Phrenology in 19th century Britain But although phrenology may seem harmless, it was also seized upon by pro-slavery advocates who argued that it supported white supremacy. The Dark Side Of Phrenology

Young (1968) provided a critique of Gall’s original data. He argued that Gall was often unable to obtain direct evidence about the size of the organs in the brain since he mostly made his observations on living organisms. Popham, The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci; Dürer, Hierinn sind begriffen vier Bucher von menschlicher Proportion; Vesalius, On the Fabric of the Human Body; Kemp, “Style and non-style in anatomical illustration.” a b c Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking". Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. California: Skeptics Society. pp.195–203.Winn, J. M. (1879). "Mind and Living Particles". Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology. 5 (1): 18–29. PMC 5122056. PMID 28906933. Phrenology intrigued people from all walks of life. The middle and working classes were consumed with the idea of that this kind of scientific knowledge was power. Even Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were curious enough to have the heads of their children read. McCandless, Peter (1992). "Mesmerism and Phrenology in Antebellum Charleston: 'Enough of the Marvellous' ". The Journal of Southern History. 58 (2): 199–230. doi: 10.2307/2210860. JSTOR 2210860. It is, however, allowable to take as a principle, that there will be a relation betwixt vigour of intellect and perfection of form; and that, therefore, history will direct us to the original and chief family of mankind. We therefore ask, which are the nations that have excelled and figured in history, not only as conquerors, but as forwarding, by their improvements in arts and sciences, the progress of human knowledge? Hamilton, Lectures of Metaphysics and Logic, 240; Tiedemann, “On the Brain of the Negro”; Wyman, “On the Measurement of Crania.”

These areas were said to be proportional to a person's propensities. The importance of an organ was derived from relative size compared to other organs. It was believed that the cranial skull—like a glove on the hand—accommodates to the different sizes of these areas of the brain, so that a person's capacity for a given personality trait could be determined simply by measuring the area of the skull that overlies the corresponding area of the brain. Jones, Oiwi Parker, et al. "An Empirical, 21st Century Evaluation of Phrenology." BioRxiv, 2018, doi.org/10.1101/243089.Bunge, M. (2018). From a Scientific Point of View: Reasoning and Evidence Beat Improvisation across Fields. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar Publishing. p.74. According to Galen, there was a “vital spirit” originating in the left ventricle of the heart. This spirit, or pneuma, was carried to the base of the brain by the carotid arteries. The role of the brain, in this theory, was to purify and filter this liquid pneuma, resulting in cerebrospinal fluid.