After the Enlightenment, most anatomical studies were conducted in the interest of physiology. That is, because the main structures of the body were already sufficiently known, the focus of research shifted toward learning the functions of these structures and toward seeing smaller structures, such as cells, in terms of their functions.

Although considered a charlatan by many for his popular promotions of phrenology, Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) was a preeminent neuroanatomist and an expert dissector. His findings laid the basis for the modern study of cerebral localization. The rapid advance of neuroscience in the nineteenth century was largely due to Luigi Rolando (1773-1831); Charles Bell (1774-1842); Karl Friedrich Burdach (1776-1847); Pierre Flourens (1794-1867); Anders Adolf Retzius (1796-1860); Johannes Müller (1801-1858); Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894), who studied the speed of nerve...