Phineas Gage: The Rod Through His Head

In September 1848, railroad foreman Phineas Gage was tamping blasting powder into rock near Cavendish, Vermont, when the charge exploded early. The blast drove his tamping iron into the left side of his face and out through the top of his skull.

Within minutes, Gage was talking. Doctor John Harlow treated him through a severe infection, and Gage recovered, mostly.

Twenty years later, Harlow wrote that Gage had become impulsive and profane. Friends said he was "no longer Gage." His case entered medical folklore, because it pointed to a link between the frontal lobes and behavior.

But the legend grew in the retelling. In his later years, Gage worked as a long-distance stagecoach driver in Chile, a demanding job that suggests he regained some of what he had lost.

Watch the short story: Phineas Gage: The Rod Through His Head on Aha Lantern.

Source: Wikipedia, Phineas Gage.

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