Phineas Gage
| Phineas P. Gage | |
|---|---|
Gage and his "constant companion"—his inscribed tamping iron—sometime after 1849, seen in the portrait (identified 2009) which "exploded the common image of Gage as a dirty, disheveled misfit."
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| Born | July 9, 1823 (date uncertain) Grafton Co., New Hampshire |
| Died | May 21, 1860 (aged 36) In or near San Francisco |
| Cause of death | Status epilepticus |
| Burial place | Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, California (skull in Warren Anatomical Museum, Boston) |
| Residence | |
| Occupation |
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| Known for | Personality change after brain injury |
| Home town | Lebanon, New Hampshire |
| Spouse(s) | None |
| Children | None |
 Video reconstruction of tamping iron passing through Gage's skull (Ratiu et al.) |
Phineas P. Gage (1823 – May 21, 1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining twelve years of his life—effects sufficiently profound (for a time at least) that friends saw him as "no longer Gage."
Long known as the "American Crowbar Case"—once termed "the case which more than all others is calculated to excite our wonder, impair the value of prognosis, and even to subvert our physiological doctrines" —Phineas Gage influenced nineteenth-century discussion about the mind and brain, particularly debate on cerebral localization,
Gage is a fixture in the curricula of neurology, psychology, and neuroscience, one of "the great medical curiosities of all time" and "a living part of the medical folklore" frequently mentioned in books and scientific papers; he even has a minor place in popular culture. Despite this celebrity, the body of established fact about Gage and what he was like (whether before or after his injury) is small, which has allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have" —Gage acting as a "Rorschach inkblot" in which proponents of various conflicting theories of the brain all saw support for their views. Historically, published accounts of Gage (including scientific ones) have almost always severely exaggerated and distorted his behavioral changes, frequently contradicting the known facts.
A report of Gage's physical and mental condition shortly before his death implies that his most serious mental changes were temporary, so that in later life he was far more functional, and socially far better adapted, than in the years immediately following his accident. A social recovery hypothesis suggests that Gage's work as a stagecoach driver in Chile fostered this recovery by providing daily structure which allowed him to regain lost social and personal skills.
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Wikipedia