Galls are the proliferation of cell tissue in plants and can be caused by various living agents from fungi and bacteria, to various insects and mites. Often, they are very organised structures and because of this, the cause of the gall can often be determined without the actual agent being identified. This applies particularly to some insect and mite galls.
Although insectgalls can be found on a variety of parts of the plant, such as the leaves, stalks, branches, buds, roots or even flowers, gall-inducing insects are fairly particular about which tissue of the plants or what kind of plants they make galls on.
Galls are rich in resins and tannic acid and have been used in the manufacture of permanent inks and astringent ointments, in dyeing, and in tanning.
Gall began to collect human and animal skulls and wax moulds of brains from around 1792 in order to study the development of the cranial contours with the characteristic behaviours associated with a species of animal, or a well-known general or robber.
Gall claimed to have discovered that the nerves flowed not to a centre, but outwards in all directions, and hence there was no central control centre but instead diffuse and localized modules throughout the surface of the brain.
Gall described the brain as the continuation of the spinal cord and claimed to have discovered that the brain is made of "bundles of threads" rather than a pudding-like substance.
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