![\"Photo:](\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/photo-0913-2016-phineas-gage.png\")
<\/a>Gage was knocked flat on his back by the accident. As his horrified men gathered around him, one retrieved the iron bar, covered in blood and bits of brain. Gage was conscious, and in a few minutes spoke to his men, got into an ox cart, and was driven \u00be of a mile to his lodgings.<\/p>\n
Startled doctors dressed his wounds and everyone waited for Gage to die \u2013 which he did not do. In fact, in 56 days he seemed recovered, other than losing the sight in his left eye. He would go on to live another 12 years.<\/p>\n The left frontal lobe of his brain was almost completely destroyed, and in noting changes in his personality following the accident, doctors and scientists began to realize there is a relation between personality, behavior, and different parts of the brain. His story is an important case in the history of neurology, and his skull and iron bar are on display at Harvard University\u2019s Warren Anatomical Museum, where they have been since 1868.<\/p>\n The local paper, the Ludlow Union<\/em>, published an account of the accident the next day. That article was reprinted by the Nantucket<\/em> Inquirer<\/em>.<\/p>\n Here is a transcription of this article:<\/p>\n HORRIBLE ACCIDENT \u2013 As Phineas P. Gage, a foreman on the Railroad in Cavendish, was yesterday engaged in tamkin [i.e., tamping] for a blast, the powder exploded, carrying an iron instrument through his head, an inch and a fourth in circumference, and three feet and eight inches in length, which he was using at the time. The iron entered on the side of his face, shattering the upper jaw, and passing back of the left eye, and out at the top of his head.<\/p>\n The most singular circumstance connected with this melancholy affair is, that he was alive at two o\u2019clock this afternoon, and in full possession of his reason, and free from pain. \u2013 Ludlow (Vt.) Union<\/em>.<\/p>\n A month later Gage\u2019s remarkable recovery was in the news, as well as an important clarification: the iron tamping bar was even thicker than had been originally reported, being 1.25 inches in diameter<\/em>, not circumference. This 1848 newspaper article uses \u201cwonderful\u201d in the sense of \u201cfull of wonder.\u201d<\/p>\n This article was published in Vermont by the Woodstock Mercury<\/em>, and reprinted by the Alexandria Gazette<\/em> \u2013 showing the far-ranging interest in the case.<\/p>\n Here is a transcription of this article:<\/p>\n THE \u201cSTRANGE CASE IN SURGERY.\u201d<\/p>\n We gave some account, a few weeks ago, of the wonderful case of Mr. Gage, foreman on the railroad in Cavendish, who, in preparing a charge for blasting a rock, had an iron bar driven through his head, entering through his cheek, and passing out at the top of his head, with a force that carried the bar some rods, after performing its wonderful journey through skull and brains. The iron was in diameter an inch and a qua[r]ter, and in length three feet and seven inches; the upper end of the iron, however, tapering to the diameter of one-fourth of an inch. We repeat the dimensions of the rod, as we observe some of the papers that copied the article substituted the word circumference<\/em> for diameter<\/em>, thinking, perhaps, the story told in that way would be quite as large as could well be believed. But we refer to this wonderful case again to say that the patient not only survives, but is much improved: the wound in his head has healed, the scuttle<\/em> in his roof is closing up, and he is likely to be out again, with no visible injury but the loss of an eye. \u2013 Woodstock (Vt.) Mercury<\/em>.<\/p>\n Years after Gage\u2019s death his family gave Dr. John Harlow, who treated Gage at the time of the accident, his skull and tamping bar for further study.<\/p>\n Here is a transcription of this article:<\/p>\n In 1848, Phineas Gage, of Cavendish, Vt., [had] a tamping iron three and one-half feet long, weighing thirteen pounds, blown by a quarry blast through the roof of his mouth and out at the top of his head, but got well in sixty days and lived thirteen [twelve] years, dying of disease in 1861 [1860]. Last week his skull was deposited in the museum of the Massachusetts Medical Society.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>