The tale of Phineas Gage

**Or... what happens when you get an iron rod through the brain?**

Phineas Gage with the rod that pierced him. Originally from the collection of Jack and Beverly Wilgus, and now in the Warren Anatomical Museum, Harvard Medical School.

The emotional and decision making parts of the brain are linked

Phineas Gage was a railroad construction foreman who in 1848 suffered a workplace accident that saw a 48inch long, 1.25inch wide iron rod shoot through his brain.

Mr. G. got up and vomited; the effort of vomiting pressed out about half a teacupful of the brain [through the exit hole at the top of the skull], which fell upon the floor.

Excerpted from Williams' and Harlow's statements in: Harlow (1848), pp. 390–3

Amazingly, despite the severity of his brain injuries, he survived and made a remarkable though incomplete recovery. Gage experienced changes to his memory, his personality, and his decision-making abilities. He lost the ability to regulate his emotions and social behaviour, and struggled to commit to any decisions or plans.The changes to Gage's decision-making and emotional faculties served as the earliest evidence of the link in the brain between the two.

He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operations, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible.