Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #24 - The Improbable Survival of Phineas Gage

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

On September 13th, 1848, a dynamite blast rocketed a 43-inch long, 13-pound iron bar completely through the skull of 25-year-old railway worker Phineas Gage. It landed some eighty feet away, covered in Phineas' blood and brains. And after a few minutes, Phineas got up, started talking, walked over to an oxcart, rode it to the hotel where he was staying, sat on the porch and waited to speak with a doctor. Not long after the doctor arrived, he vomited and more of his brain fell out of his head. And he just... kept... talking... For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com

Welcome to another edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins and today I will be sharing the story of Phineas Gage. I first came across this story when I was around 8 or 9 years old watching an episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not with my grandma Betty after school and it blew my mind. If you are not familiar with this story I imagine it will blow yours as well. And blowing one's mind very central to the story actually. In 1848 a 25 year old railroad worker named Phineas Gage was blowing up rocks with dynamite to clear the way for a new rail line in Cavendish, Vermont. He would drill a hole, place an explosive charge, then pack in sand using a 13 pound metal bar known as a tamping iron. Phineas liked his job. He was good at it. He even got his

tamping iron specially made by a local blacksmith, an investment that probably meant he was planning on having a long career as a railroad foreman. But that would not happen. On September 13, 1848, the metal bar created a spark that touched off the charge and that, in turn, drove that tamping iron up and out of that hole so fast, with enough force to enter Phineas's face through his left cheek, shoot behind his eye socket, and blast right on out of the top of his head. The tamping iron would land on the ground some 80 feet away, covered in Phineas's blood and brains, and Phineas would land on his back. He would convulse and twitch, caught in the throes of a seizure for several

moments, and then within a few minutes, he would shock everyone around him by standing up, talking, and walking over to sit in an ox cart to take a three-quarter mile trip back into town where he'd then get out of that ox cart, walk home, sit on the porch, wait to see a doctor, as if he didn't have a literal hole blasted through the center of his brain. Words and ideas can change the world. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a dream! I'll plead not guilty right now.

Your only chance is to leave with us. Born on July 9th, 1823, Phineas P. Gage was the first of five children born to Jesse Eaton Gage and Hannah Trussell Gage of Grafton County, New Hampshire. Nobody's really sure what the P stands for. Maybe preposterous? Perplexing. Phenomenal.

Peculiar? He grew up in one of or around one of several local New Hampshire towns, Lebanon or nearby East Lebanon, Enfield and or Grafton, though John Harlow, the doctor who would treat him after his accident, referred to Lebanon as Gage's native place. Historian Malcolm Macmillan says that it's likely that Gage was an eighth generation American of Puritan origin, descended from John Gage, who first appeared in written record in Massachusetts as one of the signers of the August 1630 covenant of the first church in Boston after arriving in Salem, Massachusetts,

way back on June 12, 1630. John Gage moved from Boston to Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1633, where the first three generations of his descendants lived. A member of the fourth generation, Solomon Gage, would move to New Hampshire. Solomon's son, the first Phineas in the family, was born in Concord, New Hampshire in 1772, and he was our Phineas Gage's grandfather. Grandpa Phineas, old Pappy P, was an early settler of Enfield, New Hampshire, and a farmer who married Phoebe Eaton of Candia, New Hampshire on February 17th, 1797, and the first of their 12 children, Jesse Eaton Gage was

born on April 1798. Jesse would marry Hannah Trussell Sweatland of East Lebanon New Hampshire April 27th 1823. Interestingly enough apparently Phineas was born just over a month later though there's still debate amongst historians as to his true birth year and birth date. Accurate records from this time, especially when they're not in an urban area, pretty hard to come by. We do know that Phineas most likely grew up on his grandfather's farm in Enfield, or at his uncle's farm in nearby Grafton. He probably attended school, was literate, seen as at the time 95% of people under 25 in Grafton County were in some kind of school, primary, secondary, or university, which led to an overall literacy rate of 99.1%. Super impressive for the time. Maybe that's how he survived his later brain injury. He studied so much he built his

mind muscle into something so strong, it was still pretty strong, after having the middle of it literally blown out. I don't think that's how brains work, but I like to pretend it is. I like to pretend that if you just do wordle enough, if you do enough crossword puzzles, you can survive an iron rod through the skull. Other than what little I have shared, we don't know much about his childhood, but by adulthood, according again to Dr. John Harlow, he was, quote, a perfectly healthy, strong and active young man, 25 years of age, nervobilius temperament, five feet six inches in height, average weight 150 pounds, possessing

an iron will as well as an iron frame, muscular system unusually well developed, having had scarcely a day's illness from his childhood to the date of his injury. He was fucking jacked. Nervobilius, by the way, is an outdated term that means easily excitable and with energy and strength of mind and body. The term comes from phrenology, aka the old-timey, now-debunked study of the relationship between a person's character and the physical features of their skull, of which there actually is not a real relationship. But this was the primary way of understanding the brain back in Phineas' day.

Phrenology was developed by German-born physician Franz Josef Gall in the mid-18th century. In 1810, Gall published his principal work, titled The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General and of the Brain in Particular. Gall described personality traits such as reverence, destructiveness, firmness, mirthfulness, and caution to specific areas of the brain. Gal described personality traits such as reverence, destructiveness, firmness, mirthfulness, and caution to specific areas of the brain. If a trait were especially well developed, he believed that the area of the brain would be larger, causing a bump in the skull.

Likewise, if a trait were underdeveloped, that area of the skull would be flat or possibly compressed. Phrenologists hypothesized that by feeling someone's head, they could identify one's parental aptitude, artistic talent, intelligence, propensity to crime, and other mental and moral faculties. If only it were that easy. If only you could just be like, I am sorry, but we are just not a good match. There's no point in going out on a date. You see your head is simply, it's well, it's too pointy towards the front. And I won't be able to handle your whimsical temperament and propensity for being impulsive.

So, sorry pointy, but I gotta go. Though we know it today as pseudoscience, this idea seemed, in Phineas's time, like a radical new way of thinking, as much on the vanguard of scientific research as 3D printing organs is regarded today. It was also controversial. Some, following a Christian perspective of the day day believed that the soul, not the brain, was the repository for our moral reasoning. Others believed that functions of the brain were not localized and that the brain was

instead an interconnected system. Interestingly enough, Phineas would become a piece of evidence for both sides of this debate. That saga would lead him to his status as a medical marvel that began with something very ubiquitous in 19th century America, the railroad. The earliest form of railroads in America were used in mines and quarries, heavy loads being transported by horse-drawn carts running on wooden or iron tracks. Sounds like tough work. Following the invention of the first steam locomotive in 1804 in Wales over in the UK,

several short rail lines were then built in the U.S. in the 1820s and competed directly with the canals. Efforts were actually made to protect the canals by passing state or local laws that prohibited rail lines from certain areas or restricted them from carrying freight. But support for the railroads was impossible to stop largely because of their ability to deliver people or products at all times of the year, including the day of winter when canals had frozen over. Despite the obvious advantages of rail traffic for farmers and manufacturers, not everyone was supportive. Of course not. There have literally always been those who just resist change. Just like on principle. You know, if something's different, they don't like it and they're likely always will be those people. Even when the change is blatantly positive.

Some clergymen thought this new form of transportation was outside of God's plan. God hates trains. Wake up! Some physicians warned about the impact of high speeds on the human body. Totally. Good thoughts guys. Thanks for chiming in and sharing them. Now go over there and just sit at the kiddies table. Nonetheless, during the 1830s, despite the obvious risks, rail lines appeared in many sections of the country, particularly in New England and the Midwest. Most of these lines went directly from major city to major city or connected one body of water to another significant body of water. And Vermont situated between big eastern cities like Hartford, Boston, Providence, and New York and important shipping destinations like the Great Lakes was prime real estate for a railroad.

Construction of the Vermont Central Railroad running from Hartford to Paynesville, present-day Essex Junction began in 1845. Short time later, construction started on a competitor, Rutland Railroad, which terminated in downtown Burlington. Love Burlington, Vermont, by the way. Such an adorable college town with some seriously awesome people out there. Before any rails could be built on tracks laid down, crews of workers needed to clear space for the wilderness, blasting away tons of rock and dirt, hauling away trees and boulders, and generally making the area flat enough to accommodate trains.

And this is what Phineas Gage would do. Gage was not employed directly by the Rutland and Burlington Railroad Company, instead he was employed by a subcontractor of the railroad, possibly Decker and Warner, who had gotten a contract to prepare a section of land for the railroad near Cavendish, Vermont. Workers, including Gage, were recruited from the surrounding area, mostly farmers seeking to make money during the offseason. The lowest class of laborer would work from sunup till sundown, sleeping nearby so they could get up and do it all over again the next day. The housing was abysmal, undoubtedly similar to what Charles Dickens would describe from

his observation of housing for railroad workers in Pennsylvania when he wrote, The best were poor protection from the weather, the worst let in the wind and rain through wide breaches in the roofs of sodden grass, and in the walls of mud. Some had neither door nor window, all were reunions and filthy. I don't know what he means by reunions there, but hideously ugly old women and very buxom young ones. Pigs, dogs, men, children, babies, pots, kettles, dung hills, vile refuse, ranks, straw, and standing water all wallowing together in an inseparable heap. Do we take a second to wonder, before moving on, why Dickens felt the need to comment on the attractiveness or lack of attractiveness amongst the old

women or on the breast size of young women when describing how shitty workers' accommodations were. What kind of sub-human housing were the workers forced to live in, Charles? Never seen such ugly women! Uh, what? I'm sorry, Charles, what was that? But the young ones, hot damn, were those titties something to gander at. I'm sorry, Charles, what was that? But the young ones, hot damn, with those titties something to gander at. I'm sorry, Charles, are we still talking about housing?

Should you maybe go beat off then come back and talk about the housing when you're able to focus again? Very strange. Back to Vermont. As a foreman, Gage would afford to live a little ways off from the site in a Cavendish inn or tavern. Accommodations, we hope, lacking in hideously ugly old women. On the job he had to maintain an efficient work schedule, allotting tasks to the men in his gang fairly, recording accurately the time each man spent on each task and treating the men equally and paying them properly. A foreman who didn't do this could risk unpopularity and even violent death at the hands of their own men. Shit got crazier on job sites back then than they tend to do now.

According to Dr. Harlow's 1848 write-up of Phineas Gage, he was popular amongst his men. Perhaps a sense of propriety or not wanting to get murdered was what led him to personally take on arguably the most dangerous job of tamping instead of assigning that job to, I don't know, the new guy. To clear space for the railroad tracks, Gage's men had to blast away dirt, rock, and other rubble by drilling holes, cramming those holes with explosives with an iron rod, then putting sand or clay on top of the explosives to plug the hole before igniting the fuse that was buried alongside the explosives. Obviously also connected to them and then blowing the whole thing up. Well Gage had a special rod for this purpose,

forged by a neighboring blacksmith, three feet and seven inches long, one and a quarter inches in diameter at the larger end, tapering to a diameter of a quarter of an inch at the other. Weighed about 13 pounds, just over 13 pounds, and was more than half as tall as Gage himself who stood at 5'6". It was a big ass rod. Not something anyone would rightfully expect to live through if it were shot to their fucking skull. Tampy with this rod was to play a pretty risky game. The hole had to be drilled in the right place, which was hard to do when you're drilling by hand. The right amount of explosive powder had to be selected and then packed into place without accidentally igniting a spark in that process. At 430 p.m. on the afternoon of

September 13th 1848, Gage got to work with his rod once again as he had likely done dozens if not hundreds of times before. Gage was tamping the powder and the fuse into a hole in preparation for the sand to be put in when his attention was diverted to his men who were loading excavated rock out of a pit a few feet behind him. It is unclear exactly what happened next, but it was some version of this. With his head still averted and looking over his right shoulder, Gage dropped the iron onto the powder again, but this time it hit the rock, struck a spark, and ignited the charge.

Immediately following that spark, the rod reversed direction real quick, plunged straight through Gage's head at great speed, landing about 80 feet behind him, smeared with blood and brain matter. Gage was thrown onto his back where his body began to convulse, but within a few minutes he was speaking and was walking back to Christopher Goodrich's ox cart where he was then driven three-quarters of a mile to the tavern where he was living. Some sources say tavern, some sources say hotel, I'm sure they were one in the same. And he was then driven three quarters of a mile to the tavern where he was living. Some sources say tavern, some sources say hotel. I'm sure there were one and the same. And he was speaking, almost as if nothing serious had just happened. The whole ride back.

A possibly exaggerated account said that Gage, while on the ox cart, even made some notes in his time book, recording his crew's hours and wages. I hope that's true. Ah, stop making such a fuss. Oh, well, well okay so what? So a giant metal bar shot through my head and took part of my brain out. Okay nothing it's nothing you worked up about. All the doctors show some tissue down into my brain, stop the bleeding, sew up the entry and exit holes, get back to work tomorrow morning. Weighing a little bit less than I did this morning. That's a positive thing I'm gonna take away from this. Lost some weight.

Even Phineas himself didn't appear all that shaken up. The sight of a man whose head had been all but exploded, sitting calmly in a cart, fucking blood all over him. It shocked everyone else who saw him. Of course it did. He had pieces of his brain on his shirt, I'm sure. It shocked Reverend Joseph Freeman, who would later write, I found him sitting in a cart, sitting up up without aid with his back against the foreboard.

When he reached his quarters, he rose on his feet without aid and walked quick, though with an unsteady step. I bet he's a bit dizzy. To the hind end of the cart, when two of his men came forward and aided him out and walked him supporting him to the house. I then asked his men how he came to be hurt and the reply was the blast went off when he was tamping it and the tamping iron passed through his head. I said that is impossible. Soon after this I went to the place where the accident happened. I found upon the rocks where I supposed he had fallen a, this is absurd, this is a sentence he said, I found upon the rocks where I suppose he had fallen a small quantity of brains.

There being no person at this place, I passed on to a blacksmith shop a few rods beyond in and about which a number of Irishmen were collected. As I came up to them, they pointed me to the iron, which has since attracted so much attention, standing outside the shop door. They said they found it covered with brains and dirt and had washed it in the brook. The appearance of the iron corresponded with his story. It had a greasy appearance and

was so to the touch. Dear God! A small quantity of brains. Can you imagine how surreal that would be? I wonder if Phineas saw the rod before he sat down in the ox cart. That would be so trippy. It'd feel relatively fine. But see some of your brains on the iron rod that had been shot clean through your head. I wonder if you'd be mad later to find out that they just washed those brains off in the creek. What the fuck guys? I wanted those brains back. Why couldn't you just give them to a doctor and then you can push them back in the hole in my head? I'd kick the shit out of you assholes if I wasn't so dumb now,

thanks to some of my brains being washed down the creek." Back at the tavern where he was staying, Gage's men helped him up onto the porch. He was still walking a bit unsteadily, I bet, where he would sit and await medical attention. At about five o'clock, Dr. Edward Higginson Williams of Proctorsville arrived. That's an odd name, Edward Higginson Williams. Procter'sville arrived. That's an odd name Edward Higginson Williams. In response to seeing the doctor Gage allegedly said doctor here is business enough for you. I got a real challenge for you doctor check this shit out. Williams could only agree even from the street he could see

the pulsations of Gage's brain. Then this is absurd, even more absurd. As Williams examined his head, Gage threw up. He vomited and the effort, the force of vomiting, squeezed out as Dr. Williams recorded, quote, about half a teacupful of the brain through the exit hole at the top of the skull, which fell upon the floor. Jesus Christ! How pissed is Gage now? Fuck, God damn it! Really, doctor? You couldn't even try and catch my brain? God, there's a lot of brain, that was a lot of brain feeders of lead! Falling dirty floor, old teacup! Wore his brains. And between that and the brains I lost in the creek and the brains I lost found on the dirt next to where this happened, I probably don't have any brains left! Williams was joined an hour later by Dr. John Martin Harlow,

who watched in amazement as Gage stood up, after all that shit, walked with quote, little assistance up a flight of stairs to his room. Oh my God, despite losing brains on the tamping iron, losing a teacup more of his fucking brains, when he threw up more brains, you know, at the side of the act, and this is crazy. Harlow would later write,

You will excuse me for remarking here that the picture presented was to one unaccustomed to military surgery, truly terrific. But the patient bore his sufferings with the most heroic firmness. He recognized me at once and said he hoped he was not much hurt. He seemed to be perfectly conscious but was getting exhausted from the hemorrhage. His person and the bed on which he was laid were literally one gore of blood. My god! Gage spoke rationally and fully consciously describing the accident as the two doctors now cleaned his burns and the wounds on his head

though he was still constantly swallowing blood which he would then vomit up every 15 or 20 minutes. With Williams' assistance, Harlow shaved the scalp around the region of the tamping iron's exits, then removed some coagulated blood, small bone fragments, and quote, an ounce or more of protruding brain. How? These guys get real casual with homeboys brain. Did they even try to push some of those brains back in? Harlow found that quote, the iron entered the left cerebrum at the fissure of

Sylvius, possibly puncturing the corneal of the left lateral ventricle. All these terms for different parts of the brain and in its passage and exit must have produced serious lesion of the brain substance, the anterior and middle, i.e. temporal left lobes of the cerebrum disintegrating and pulpifying it drawing out a considerable quantity of it at the opening in the top of his head what uh i'm no neurosurgeon but that sounds bad that sounds real bad i feel like the layman's term uh terms version of that is oh his brain is totally fucked it's the most fucked i've ever seen a brain His brain is totally fucked. It's the most fucked I've ever seen a brain. That bar mushed the shit out of most of his mind.

Harlow explored the wound by placing his index finger in the opening in the top of this dude's head Until it quote receive the other finger and like manner from the wound in his cheeks. Now he's touching fingers and this guy's fucking middle of his brain. And then after probing for foreign bodies and replacing two large detached pieces of bone, the doctor closed the wound with adhesive straps, leaving it partially open for drainage. And I don't even think they don't even have this guy like under anesthesia. They're just fucking noodling around in his brain with their fingers. Maybe they gave him some whiskey or something. Oh my god. The entrance wound to the cheek was bandaged loosely for the same reason. Wet compress was applied, then a night nightcap then further bandaging to secure these dressings. This guy must have had one hell of a headache after this. Late that evening

Harlow noted of Gage quote, mind clear constant agitation of his legs being alternately retracted and extended. Says he quote, does not care to see his friends as he shall be at work in a few days. That's a tough son of a bitch. Even so, Harlow thought it was impossible that he would recover. The doctor I imagine still expected him to die and soon, you know, and soon, like as quickly, and I imagine everyone else who saw what happened to him also thought that. Gage was actually measured by Thomas Winslow, the town cabinetmaker, so there would be a

coffin ready for the railroad worker when he soon died. And before we find out if they would use that coffin, time for today's mid-show sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads you can sign up for our patreon, become a Spaces or $5 a month, and get the entire catalog ad free and more. And now let's see how long old head wound Harry will live. At some point the next morning his mother who was living roughly 30 miles away in Lebanon, New Hampshire arrived with his uncle and Gage recognized them both. But shortly after they arrived things took a turn for the worse. That morning he quote lost control of his mind and became decidedly delirious according to Harlow.

But by the fourth day he was again quote rational, knows his friends. And after a week's further improvement Harlow entertained for the first time the thought, quote, that it was possible for Gage to recover. This improvement, however, was of short duration. Twelve days after the accident, Gage fell into a semi-comatose state now, not speaking unless he was spoken to and even then answering only in monosyllables. On the 13th day,low noted quote failing strength, coma deepened. The globe with the left eye became more protuberant with fungus, a parenthetical

infected tissue, pushing out rapidly from the internal canthus as well as from the wounded brain and coming out of the top of his head. My god this dude's brain is infected. By the fourteenth day, quote, the exhalations from the mouth and head are horribly fetid, comatose but will answer in monosyllables if aroused, will not take nourishment unless strongly urged. The friends in attendance are in hourly expectancy of his death and have his coffin and clothes in readiness. One of the attendants implored me not to do anything more for him as it would only prolong his suffering, that if I would only keep anything more for him, as it would only prolong his suffering,

that if I would only keep away and let him alone, he would die. Galvanized to action, Harlow quote, cut off the fungi which were sprouting out from the top of the brain and filling the opening and made free application of caustic, i.e. crystalline silver nitrate, to them. With a scalpel, I laid open the frontal muscle from the exit wound down to the top of the nose and immediately there was discharged eight ounces of ill-conditioned pus with blood and excessively fetid. My god. Dude has some kind of fucking fungus. Some infection fungus growing out of the top of his brain. How is he still alive? Meanwhile newspapers are now carrying this strange story. On September 20th, the Boston Courier and the Boston Daily Journal published identical accounts. Quote, horrible accident Phineas P. Gage, a foreman on the Rutland railroad at Cavendish, Vermont,

was preparing for a blast on Wednesday last when the powder exploded. Carrying through his head an iron instrument, the iron entered on the side of his face, shattering the upper jaw and passing back out of the left eye and out of the top of his head. Singularly enough he was alive at two o'clock the next afternoon in full possession of his reason and free from pain. Everyone now wanted to know for how long would Gage survive and what would he be like if he somehow recovered? On the fifth and sixth of October Harlow recorded that Gage, quote, calls for his pants and wishes to get out of bed, though he is unable to raise his head from the pillow, appears demented or in a state of mental hebatute. Hebatute, by the way, just means to be like lethargic, slow.

Then only five days later, on October 11th, exactly 28 days after the accident, Harlow writes, intellectual faculties brightening. When I asked him how long since he was injured, he replied, Four weeks this afternoon at four and a half o'clock relates the manner in which it occurred and how he came to the house. He keeps the day of the week and the time of the day in his mind. Says he knows more than half of those who inquire after him. I love that.

Doc, I may have lost half my brains, but I still have more mind than half of the fuckwits who've come by to pay their respects. Mixed with this more positive picture, though, appeared the first hint of a cognitive deficit quite distinct from any other consequence of infection. Harlow wrote, Does not estimate size or money accurately, though he has memory as perfect as ever. He would not take a thousand dollars for a few pebbles, which he took from an ancient river bed where he was at work. In other words, this was the first sign the

gauge may have changed. Two days later, on October 15th, 32 days after the accident, some ominous indications of a personality change began to make themselves known. Remembers passing and past events correctly as well before as since the injury, intellectual manifestations feeble, being exceedingly capricious and childish, but with a will as indomitable as ever, is particularly obstinate, will not yield to restraint when it conflicts with his desires. On the 37th day, October 20th, Harlow wrote, improving. Gets out and into bed with but little assistance. Sits up 30 minutes, twice in 24 hours.

Is very childish. Wishes to go home to Lebanon, New Hampshire. As Gage regained physical strength, the problem of controlling his impulses became more difficult. By November 8th, on the 56th day, Harlow was writing, He walks up and down stairs and about the house into the piazza and I am informed this evening that he has been in the street today. I leave him for a week with strict instructions to avoid excitement and exposure. But over the following week, Gage systematically disobeys Harlow's commands. On November 15th, returning to see his patient, Harlow wrote, Return last evening and learn that Gage has been in the street every day during my absence,

excepting Sunday. Is impatient of restraint and could not be controlled by his friends. Making arrangements to go home. Yesterday he walked half a mile, purchased some articles at the store, inquired the price and paid the money with his habitual accuracy. Did not appear to be particular as to price, provided he had money to meet it. This seems to link to Harlow's idea of Gage losing all of his money sense, but then again if you had just had a traumatic accident and wanted to go home, would you be caring that much about money? Harlow goes on. The atmosphere was cold and damp, the ground wet, and he went without an overcoat, and with thin boots. Got wet feet in a chill, I find him in bed depressed and very irritable. The atmosphere was cold and damp, the ground wet, and he went without an overcoat, and

with thin boots. Got wet feet and a chill, I find him in bed depressed and very irritable. The effects of this chill lasted for three days. Harlow then noted Gage, quote, appears to be in a way of recovering if he can be controlled. By November 25th, 10 weeks after his injury, Gage was strong enough to return to his parents' home in Lebanon, New Hampshire. He was brought to the farm in a, quote, closed carriage in an enclosed specialty type cart used typically for transporting those deemed insane.

When he arrived, he was notably, quote, feeble and thin, weak and childish, according to Harlow, who two days later on November 27th, completed his paper about Gage's miraculous incident. By late December, Gage was riding a horse again. By February of the next year, he was able to do some work on the farm like feeding the cows. By the spring, he was able to do half a day's work of plowing. In April of 1849, a little over six months after the accident, Gage returned to Cavendish and visited Harlow for a checkup. Harlow noted that Gage could not see out of his left eye and had ptosis, a drooping eyelid,

as well as a large scar on his forehead. Yeah, I bet. Under that scar, the pulsations of his brain could still barely be seen. Medically speaking, though, overall, all things considered, he was fine, alive and well. But in other respects, like Harlow had noted when Gage was first recovering, he had changed. Those instances of odd behavior during his recovery seemed to have stuck, perhaps deepened their hold on him. The most shocking change was to his quote, moral character. While the original Gage was courteous and polite in company,

the new Gage was coarse and foul-mouthed. And Harlow's, that may be a little foul-mouthed though if you'd survived that, you just pissed off that it happened. I don't know. What the fuck? You think I care about swearing now? Look at the fucking hole in my head! Look at my eye! In Harlow's 1848 report about the case, he merely hinted at a at psychological symptoms writing, The mental manifestations of the patient I reserved to a future communication. I think the case is exceedingly interesting to the enlightened physiologist and intellectual philosopher. Writing two decades later in 1868, Harlow would add, the equilibrium or balance, so to speak,

between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities seems to have been destroyed. He's a fucking savage! He wrote, 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. A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man. He likes to beat off.

Previous to his injury, although untrained in the schools, he possessed a well-balanced mind and was looked upon by those who knew him as a shrewd, smart businessman. Very energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of operation. In this regard, his mind was radically changed so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances say he was no longer Gage. Fascinating. The pieces of his brain that he had lost clearly were tied to his personality. Or so it seems. Perhaps this was why Gage was not offered his job at the railroad back. It wasn't that he physically couldn't do the job anymore, it was that he was now, well,

a bit of an asshole. But to most who didn't know Gage and thus had no idea about the personality change he seemed perfectly well. Yeah, an asshole, but you know not unlike all of the full-brained assholes that populate the world every day. Most were just fascinated with his miraculous recovery. It seemed so impossible. So impossible that some began to think that he was a liar, that this whole thing was made up, that he had never been in the accident he claimed. Indeed the fact that he was walking around and working on a farm made some in the medical profession very skeptical. Surely in that time and place what had happened to Phineas Gage was a death sentence, right? So was it all a trick? Did the accident actually even happen?

When the Buffalo Medical Journal printed Harlow's paper about the experience, it added a note, quote, query, is there any ground to suspect that the medical attendant, i.e. Harlow, may have deceived himself as to the passage of the rod through the head. That is, maybe gay just got like hit really hard on the side of his head or something or something else happened or they're all full of shit. Perhaps to save his own reputation from accusations of charlatanism, Harlow was intent on proving that it had happened and contacted Henry Jacob Bigelow, who was about to become professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School in November or early December of 1848, just a few months after the incident.

Bigelow was skeptical, but he read Harlow's statements along with eyewitness statements of the injury. He made an examination of Gage's iron, then arranged for Gage to come to Boston personally, where Bigelow would examine him in November of 1849, little over a year after Gage was brain blasted. Following the examination, Bigelow would counter Harlow's claim that Gage's personality had changed, finding him quote, quite recovered in faculties of body and mind with only inconsiderable disturbance of function. Then again, Bigelow had not known him before the accident. Bigelow presented his findings along with Phineas Gage himself to the Boston

Society for Medical Improvement on November 10th. Oddly enough just before presenting Gage he showed the society something else. quote remarkable stalagmite dr. H. J. Bigelow exhibited the specimen sent from New York found on the borders of a pond, remarkable for its singular resemblance to a petrified penis. Alright. November 10th was apparently the day that was allotted for super fucking weird presentations. We got this guy with his holos head and check it out, even more cool, we got this weird

dick rock. In his presentation, Bigelow emphasized that nothing about Gage's mental functioning had changed and he was pretty much the same. But Dr. Harlow went on to insist that that wasn't the end of the story. Gage's personality truly had changed. He wrote to the American Phrenological Journal that there was no difference in his mental manifestations after the recovery is not true. He was gross, profane, coarse, and vulgar to such a degree that his

society was intolerable to decent people. Phrenologists agreed with Harlow. They contended that Gage's mental changes, his profanity for example, stem from the destruction of his mental organ of benevolence as phrenologists sought, the part of the brain responsible for quote goodness, benevolence, the gentle character, and to dispose man to conduct himself in a manner conformed to the maintenance of social order, and or the adjacent organ of veneration related to religion and God and respect for peers and those in authority. Phrenology held that the organs of the grosser and more animal passions are near the base of the brain, literally the lowest and nearest

the animal man, while highest and farthest of the brain, literally the lowest and nearest the animal man, while highest and farthest from the sensual are the moral and religion's feelings as if to be nearest heaven, according to one 1878 text. Top of your head is where you're thinking about God and the angels and the bottom of your head is where you just want to fucking beat off and punch people. Thus veneration and benevolence are at the apex of the skull, the region of exit of Gage's tamping iron. All the debate notwithstanding, there was the fact that Phineas Gage was alive and somewhat well, and he now had to find something to do with his life. According to Harlow, after he had fully recovered, as much as you can, Gage, quote, took to traveling

and visited Boston, exhibiting himself and his iron. One account from a Boston radio reporter named Alton Blackington, who broadcasts his story almost a century following Gage's death, claimed that Phineas had a small tent on Boston Common, where he exhibited his head and the bar that had passed through it, and was so loud-mouthed, boisterous and profane that eventually the police drove him from Boston Common. And that, if true, is quite a feat. To be driven from Boston, of all cities, for being too loud and vulgar. For anyone who has ever been to Boston.

Oh my God, that's hard to imagine. And I say that as someone who loves Boston. But it is one of the loudest, most profane cities in America. And I've been to profane cities in America. And I've been to all the cities in America. Apparently it was not that way maybe back in the late 19th century though. There were other persistent rumors of Phineas being witnessed begging outside the Massachusetts Medical College, but there's no reliable eyewitness account of anyone seeing him do so. From there Harlow said Gage moved on to other large New England towns where he continued to put on exhibits, but there are no traces of this in local records.

After concluding his travels in New England, Harlow said Gage went to New York, remaining a while in the latter place at Barnum's, with his iron. He's referring to, of course, Barnum's, P.T. Barnum's, famous American museum, in New York City on Broadway at the corner of Ann Street. Harlow didn't give dates for the time Gage was supposed to have been with Barnum, but Alton Blackington would describe what he did there again more than a century after the fact, writing, He joined Austin and Stone's Museum moving out, moving on from that show to New York where the ubiquitous P.T. Barnum didn't let the fact that Phineas's skull was healed stop him from advertising, the only living man with a hole in the top of his head.

The posters and one sheets depicted a husky young man smiling broadly in spite of a huge iron bar which stuck out of his head. Actually, of course, the iron bar no longer protruded from Gage's head, but he had it with him and another skull that was also perforated for his presentation. During his sideshow performances, he would shove the long iron rod through the holes in the extra skull to demonstrate just how he was injured. All the details were to be found in a pamphlet he sold and by paying ten cents extra, skeptics could part Gage's hair and look at his brain. What there was left of it, pulsating beneath the new thin covering.

Some sources say that Gage even traveled with Barnum Cir circus, but our main source, an odd kind of fame, Stories of Phineas Gage by Malcolm McMillan, found no evidence for that in advertisements or other publications, and Barnum was a man who loved to advertise. But maybe he just gave other people top billing. In 1851, Phineas, quote, engaged with Mr. Jonathan Courier of Hanover, New Hampshire, to work in his library stable, according to Harlow. He remained there without any interruption from ill health for nearly, or quite, a year and a half.

Then in 1852, Finis-Gage set out on a different path, breaking an eight-generation tie to New England. Instead of remaining in the land of his forefathers, he followed a gold rush all the way down to Chile and South America. I guess he was seasick for the entire journey. Hopefully he didn't throw up any more of his brains. Once ashore he found work driving a horse carriage. His job involved shuffling passengers along a rugged mountainous trail between Valparaiso or Val-paraiso I think that's how in Santiago. Gage held this job for a full

seven years. It's pretty surprising when you consider how complex this work must have been. He had to drive a team of six horses and due to the nature of horse reins at the time, each had to be controlled separately. To round a bend, for example, without tipping the coach over, Gage would have had to have slowed down the inner three horses just a little more than the outer three horses, applying a very specific amount of pressure to each of the leather strap sets. This was especially not easy considering that Chile's roads were very crowded with newcomers seeking their fortunes, very little laws regulating traffic. At the same time Gage often had to drive at night making quick stops, dodging other carriages to make the journey without plunging off a cliff.

He would have had to have an intricate mental map of the trail and when not driving he would have had to have cared for his horses you know groomed fed them he would have also had to collect fares pay for his horses care pay for his lodging food etc so he must have recovered at least a little bit of that money since he also very likely picked up some Spanish probably wouldn't have had many customers had he been cursing and acting belligerent around them the entire time so did Harlow exaggerate Gage's personality changes or were the changes personality temporary? And Gage's brain is now somehow repairing itself. And pretty incredible he was able to

learn a little or a lot of a new language missing quite a bit of his fucking brain. Other members of the Gage family were also making big moves during the time that Phineas was in Chile. In 1852, Phineas's sister married 22-year-old David Dustin Shattuck, a provision dealer with the storefront at 93 Front Street in San Francisco. Phineas's parents Jesse and Hannah would follow their daughter across the country to California. And around 1858, Phineas's mother, Hannah, reported that her son had, quote, many ill turns while in Valparaiso, especially during the last year, and suffered much from hardship and exposure.

Not recovering fully, quote, he decided to try a change of climate and in June of 1859, he left for San Francisco. By the time he arrived in San Francisco, Gage was, his mother told Harlow, in a feeble condition, having failed very much since leaving New Hampshire. He must not have failed that much, he kept himself alive for all those years. Now Hannah observed her son was, quote, accustomed to entertain his little nephews and nieces with the most fabulous recitals of his feats and hair-breadth escapes without any foundation except in his fancy.

He conceived a great fondness for pets and souvenirs, especially for children, horses, and dogs, only exceeded by his attachment for his tamping iron, which was his constant companion during the remainder of his life. In other words, he really liked animals, and he seemed to be making a lot of shit up. But was that just to amuse his nieces and nephews? Was it the result of spending maybe more time with horses than people? Or evidence of a deeper medical issue? After all, everybody changes as they get older. So in Phineas' case, what was natural? And what was due to his brain trauma?

It's hard to differentiate one between the other. Eventually Phineas' health improved by September of 1859 and he went back to work, now for a farmer in Santa Clara. But in February of 1860, while sitting at a dinner, he fell in a fit and soon after had two or three fits in succession. He had no premonition of these attacks or any subsequent ill feeling. After this first fit, most likely a seizure, Phineas became less stable in his work. Dr. Harlow quoted a letter from Phineas's mother or brother-in-law regarding this. "...had been plowing the day before he had the first attack, got better in a few days,

and continued to work in various places. Could not do much, changing often and always finding something that did not suit him in every place he tried. Four months later, on May 18th, having worked various odd jobs for the past three months, something persuaded Phineas to leave Santa Clara to return to his mother. Two days later, at five in the morning, he had a severe convulsion despite being bled by a surgeon. The seizure turned out to be the first of a series that heralded the end for him. Over the next day and night the convulsions recurred frequently and Phineas Gage finally expired, Harlow says at 10 p.m. May 21st 1860, and was buried two days

later at the Lone Mountain Cemetery, later renamed Laurel Hill Cemetery. He was 36 years old, but had survived the severe damage to his brain by nearly 11 and a half years. And his story wasn't over. In 1866, Harlow caught up with Phineas' mother with one goal in mind, to get a hold of Gage's skull, regretting, quote, that an autopsy could not have been had so that the precise condition of the encephalon at the time of his death might have been known. Harlow persuaded them to allow an exhumation and this encephalon is just an anatomical term for the brain itself. Gage's head or what remained of it was removed and the skull was made available for Harlow

to study in November or December of 1867. The remains of the headless corpse were then reinterred, almost certainly in the original grave. Gage's head will never be reburied though. When Harlow had finished examining the skull, he deposited it in what is now the Warren Anatomical Museum of Harvard University's Medical School. And according to J.B.S. Jackson's notes about

the skull in his catalog of Warren exhibits, the cranium arrived in the city, Boston, with the bar in 1868. And Dr. Harlow presented his, quote, history and sequel of a case of severe injury to the head, followed by recovery, which so far as I know remains without parallel in the annals of surgery, at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society on June 3rd, 1868. Harlow's report of the course of Gage's recovery to the end of 1848 was very similar to that given nearly 20 years earlier. But one of the new things was the passage about changes to Gage's personality. That except, or excuse me, that excerpt that included that his friends thought he was no longer Gage.

And then over the following months, Dr. Henry Jacob Bigelow, the professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and others, insisted that nothing had changed in Gage's personality. And that seemed to open up the door for various people who knew Phineas to make more claims. A man named Andrew Wilson asserted in 1879 that Gage was finally beset by drinking habits, and in 1897 another man named C.D. Hughes also reported that intemperance, aka drunkenness, played a part in Gage's post-accident life. Yeah, I'd probably drink a lot too if that fucking happened to me. In 1994, Hannah DiMaggio, professor of neuroscience and the director of the Cognitive Neuroscience

Imaging Center at the University of Southern California California would claim that Gage led a wandering life for a dozen years, never returning to a fully independent existence, never holding a secure job or holding one for long and moving around a lot because the injury had changed his personality for the worse, though that directly contradicts Harlow's reports. Her husband, Antonio DiMaggio, the current David Dornseif chair in neuroscience, as well as a Professor of Psychology, Philosophy and Neurology at USC, would claim the Gage was a braggart who showed his wound to crowds and took to drinking and brawling. This guy was fucking brawling with his jacked up skull, and this behavior was proof that the accident permanently had altered his personality. In a 1994 interview report in the science section

of the New York Times, Demasio spoke of how the post-accident Gage began lying to his friends, not honoring his commitments and behaving socially, quote, like an idiot. But that has been strongly criticized, that opinion. As J.F. Kilstrom put it in 2010, many modern commentators exaggerate the extent of Gage's personality change, perhaps engaging in a kind of retrospective reconstruction based on what we know now or think we do about the role of the frontal cortex and self-regulation. Indeed, it is likely we'll never know, we'll never be even able to model, even with modern technology, what happened to Phineas Gage. We're still learning so much today about how the brain works.

What's more likely historian Malcolm McMillan, who wrote the most comprehensive book on Phineas says, is that Gage's personality did change, but then he had some kind of social recovery. When he went to Chile and had to use his brain every single day for a variety of complicated tasks, his brain kind of repaired itself for the most part. Having to push his mind like that, it may have rehabbed his mind in a way similar

to how pushing yourself from physical therapy following a serious injury rehabs a injured part of your body and restores most of its function. Indeed, Gage's stagecoach work resembled rehabilitation regiments first developed by Soviet neuropsychologist Alexander Luria in the reestablishment of self-regulation in World War II soldiers suffering frontal lobe injuries. One final note to this story. Gage was not the only person in the 19th century to survive a preposterous head wound. In 1869, an unnamed lumber mill foreman returned to work, soon after a saw cut roughly three

inches into his skull from just between his eyes to behind the top of his head. His surgeon, who had removed from this wound, quote, 32 pieces of bone together with considerable sawdust, turned the case second to none reported save the famous tamping iron case of Dr. Harlow. Not sure how long that dude lived, but just knowing he returned to work is fucking wild. Maybe he had a personality change. I bet he was a little more irritable after having that sock cut into his head. These and other reports led to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of 1869 to prove, to pretend, to jokingly wonder whether the brain has any function at all, writing, brain has any function at all. Writing, since the antics of iron bars, gas pipes, and the like, skepticism is disconfitted and dares not utter itself. Brains do not seem to be much of a count

nowadays. So get reckless everybody. Don't fucking worry about head injuries anymore. Take your helmets and just throw them in the trash. Go try out boxing and don't even worry, don't worry about defense at all. Ah ah ah go play, go play football all day, every day. Just fucking lead with the head when you tackle. Your brain can take it. And if it can't, you don't even need it. Get that head wound, get loud, let the motherfuckers and cocksuckers fly, live a little.

Embrace the new brainless, profane, animalistic you. You're probably a lot more entertaining without a brain. You'd be so much more popular if you would just stop thinking. If there's anything that's been holding you back, it's probably your mind. And that is it for this edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. I just thought it was such a fucking weird story. It did fascinate me just like when I came across as a kid. Like how? How do as a kid like how? How do you survive something like that? How do you have so much of your brain just fall out of your head? And you're just like, nah I'm good.

I'll lay down for a while. I'm gonna be sick for a little while. Then I'm gonna go down to South America get some work done. If you enjoyed this interesting little story check out the rest of the Bad Magic catalog. Beefier episodes of Time Suck. Mondays at noon, Pacific time. New episodes of Sca Suck Mondays at noon Pacific time new episodes of scared to death Tuesday at midnight two episodes of nightmare fuel some fictional horror I'm having so much fun with thrown into the mix on the scared to death feed each month thank you to Sophie Evans for her initial research thank you to Logan Keith polishing up the sound of today's episode making that cool episode thumbnail art please go to badmagicproductions.com for all your bad magic needs.

And I hope you've had a great holiday. Hope you have a great New Year's. And I hope you haven't had a metal bar shot through your head with dynamite. Have a great weekend. Add Magic Productions