Phineas Gage

Before the accident in 1848, Phineas Gage was a healthy 25-year old railroad construction foreman. He was known as an efficient, capable and smart business man and his doctors and employers described him as well-balanced, shrewd, reasonable and polite in social settings. But everything changed one day while working on the tracks. On September 13, 1848, railroad foreman Phineas Gage survived a freak explosion in Cavendish, Vermont, when a 13-pound, 3-foot-7-inch iron tamping rod shot through his left cheek and out the top of his skull, destroying much of his left frontal lobe but leaving his speech and memory intact. He had been packing gunpowder in with a metal rod when the rod struck against rock creating a spark that initiated an explosion. Co-workers said he remained conscious, being able to walk and talk by himself near immediately after. The explosion had shot the iron rod straight through his lower left jaw and out through the top of his head, landing 300 feet away. After the incident he was much different. He went from being a hard-working, well-liked laborer to a gruff, rude, foul-mouthed man. Saying crude things and behaving more like an unruly adolescent boy than a grown man. This is a historical psychological figure