Back in 1848 in the North-Eastern United States, there was an ordinary young man who had a
pretty extraordinary accident.
You may have heard of Phineas Gage, the railway foreman who had a one metre iron rod blasted
through his skull—and survived.
It's pretty graphic, think bits of skull and brains bursting out of his head.
This is my friend Anna from Gross Science, who's going to take you through the gory details.
Part of Gage's work constructing railroads was to sprinkle dynamite into blasting holes.
One afternoon, he accidentally stamped the iron rod into a hole filled with dynamite...
And it blasted off.
Into his head.
It tore through his left cheekbone, passed behind his left eye, through his frontal lobe,
out the top of his head and landed almost 8 metres away.
Medical records suggest he was conscious the entire time—he went and saw a physician
who stuck his fingers in either side of the wound to pick out pieces of skull and loose
brains.
But it wasn't so clear cut.
His brain developed a fungal infection and the physician punctured tissue inside of Gage's
nose to drain the wound.
Okay, enough of you—
Miraculously, Gage survived this massive head injury and he appeared normal.
He could still talk, walk and function as he did before.
But those who knew him said "Gage was no longer Gage," he was rude and impatient.
The rod had penetrated his frontal lobes, responsible for higher mental functions like
social behaviour and planning, and Gage could have had what we now know as frontal lobe
disorder.
Although we don't have a lot of evidence about Gage's story – only a few doctor’s reports
are published in medical journals.
Some say his behavioural changes are grossly exaggerated.
But those medical reports did contribute to modern neurology.
They supported emerging theories that our cerebral functions were localised and that
certain conditions could be linked to brain damage.
More recent studies in people with brain lesions suggest the orbital frontal lobe, part of
Gage's brain that was damaged, is super important in decision making.
And in 2012, researchers reconstructed scans of Gage’s 189 year old skull to show that
most damage was to his frontal lobe.
But the passage of the rod would have interrupted the connectivity of many different brain areas,
making Gage’s behaviour changes similar to those suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
Brain injuries don't just come from trauma, they can also be caused by a disease.
Check out Gross Science where Anna explains how the herpes virus can hide in your neurons—and
what happens next.
And if you don't already, subscribe to BrainCraft, for a new brainy episode, that's not entirely
gross, every Thursday.