The story of Phineas Gage's skull mystery

- April 15, 2020

Phineas Gage's "never say die" skull

Name : Phineas Gage

Born : July 1823,

Place of birth : New Hampshire U.S.

Died : May 1860, California American (aged 36)

Occupation : railroad foreman

Popularity : known for having survived a traumatic brain injury caused by an iron rod that shot through his skull and obliterated the greater part of the left frontal lobe of his brain. (Source).

Phineas Gage

The man with the most famous name in neuroscience

Gage was born into a family of farmers and was raised on a family farm in New Hampshire. He took up work on the construction of railways at some point of his life and came under the employment of contractors who were working with the Rutland and Burlington Railroad company. Among Gage’s duties was to clear rocks to level the ground. The task involved placing an explosive charge deep into the rock by drilling a hole.

The hole was then filled with gunpowder, and a fuse was set. Sand was added on top of the explosive material to prevent contact. A tamping rod was then used to pack the explosives into the rock. On Sept. 13, 1848, at around 4:30 p.m., the time of day when the mind might start wandering, Phineas Gage filled a drill hole with gunpowder and turned his head to check on his men. Another says Gage’s assistant (perhaps also distracted) failed to pour the sand in, and when Gage turned back, he smashed the rod down hard, thinking he was packing inert material.

Regardless, a spark shot out somewhere in the dark cavity, igniting the gunpowder and it was the last normal moment of his life. Other victims in the annals of medicine are almost always referred to by initials or pseudonyms. Not Gage; near Cavendish, Vermont, Gage tamped down the powder without the addition of the sand. As his tamping rod, which measured 3.58 feet (about 1 metre) in length and 1.25 inches (about 3.2 cm) in diameter, struck against the side of the rock, it ignited the gunpowder. The rod shot completely through Gage’s head and landed almost 82 feet (25 metres) behind him. The 13.25-pound (6-kg) rod entered Gage’s head just below his left cheekbone and exited from the top of his skull. The rod’s momentum threw Gage backward, and he landed hard. Amazingly, he claimed he never lost consciousness. He merely twitched a few times on the ground, and was talking and walking again within minutes. Incredibly, Gage never got ruffled, remaining conscious and rational throughout.

Gage survived the accident and immediately afterward was conscious and able to speak. He even claimed he’d be back blasting rocks in two days. Within a few days, however, his health deteriorated. At one point his face puffed up, his brain swelled, and he started raving. His brain developed a fungal infection and he lapsed into a coma. Some people started writing him off. But Gage quickly recovered, and, within a matter of months, he regained his physical strength and was able to return to work. He sustained no motor or speech impairments, and his memory remained intact.

However, Gage’s personality appears to have changed (for a time at least), causing his colleagues to state that he was “no longer Gage.” While some have described Gage as restless, disrespectful, and unreliable following the accident, the true extent of the personality changes he experienced are unknown. Little was documented about his personality or behaviour prior to and after the accident.Harlow summed up Gage’s personality changes by saying, “the equilibrium … between his intellectual faculties and his animal propensities seems to have been destroyed.” More pithily, friends said that Gage “was no longer Gage.” As a result of this change, the railroad refused to reinstate Gage as foreman.

He began traveling around New England instead, displaying himself and his tamping iron for money. This included a stint in P.T. Barnum’s museum in New York—notBarnum’s traveling circus, as some sources claim. For an extra dime, skeptical viewers could “part Gage’s hair and see his brain … pulsating” beneath his scalp. Gage finally found steady work driving a horse coach in New Hampshire.

In 1852 Gage took a job in Chile, working as a stagecoach driver, having apparently either regained or maintained at least some social skills. Seven years later, in poor health, he moved to California to live with his mother and sister (who had moved there from New Hampshire). Nearly 12 years after his injury, Gage died of epileptic seizures.