Porcelain phrenological bust, tinted white skin colour, with divisions labels and numbers marked in gilt, possible by Derby. Phrenology was a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules. Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796, the discipline was very popular in the 19th century, especially from about 1810 until 1840. Although now regarded as an obsolete amalgam of primitive neuroanatomy and moral philosophy, phrenological thinking was influential in 19th-century psychiatry and modern neuroscience.