The amazing story of Phineas Gage - the man with the crowbar in his skull

The possibilities of the human body are incredible. Sometimes people survive injuries that seemed to leave them no chance. One of the most unusual cases can be considered the story of the American worker Phineas P. Gage. A heavy construction scrap flew over the head of this guy, but he not only survived, but also miraculously recovered from his injury.

Gage's accident happened in September 1848 while building a railroad. His brigade was engaged in blasting, paving the way through the rocks. To destroy the rock, a deep hole was drilled in it, into which explosives were placed. A fuse was installed on top and the charge was pushed away with a special steel hammer, similar to a heavy crowbar.

The duties of the 25-year-old Phineas just included tamping the charge, as he was a strong tall guy and jokingly handled a massive tool. This fellow has already done his job hundreds of times, so he probably lost his vigilance. One day, Phineas plunged a crowbar into a well on a grand scale, but at the same time his head was just above the hole with explosives.

Probably, a strong impact of a metal tool on a stone caused a spark that ignited the gunpowder. There was an explosion that pushed out a heavy crowbar with great force, hitting Gage in the head. A sharpened steel bar 110 cm long, 3.2 cm in diameter and weighing 6 kilograms entered the left side of the man's face in the corner of his mouth, knocked out his eye, pierced his brain and flew on. Later, a ramrod stained with blood and brain matter was found 25 meters from the explosion site.

Struck by his instrument, Phineas Gage collapsed to the ground as if slain and writhed in convulsions. Those present, who observed a huge hole in his head, had no questions about the future fate of the poor fellow. But when colleagues surrounded the victim and were about to read a prayer over him, he suddenly ... sat down. Gage was bleeding and groaning, but he retained the ability to move. They say that he even walked with his feet to the working hotel, supported by the arms of his comrades.

In the hotel, the victim was prepared a bed and immediately sent for a doctor. No one doubted that the doctor only states the death of the patient, but that was not the case. Dr. Edward Williams, who arrived at Gage's, described his meeting with him as follows:

The patient himself told the doctor about his injury, causing confusion in the battered Aesculapius. During the conversation, Gage began to vomit and a piece of brain fell out of the wound on his head onto the floor. Dr. Williams, who had never seen anything like it, called for help from a colleague, Dr. Harlow. Together, they carefully shaved Phineas' head, removed blood clots and bone fragments from the wound. They also had to remove the part of the brain that had been turned into mush by the blow of the ramrod.

The patient's head was carefully bandaged, after which the powder burns on his hands and face were treated. All this time, Gage was not only conscious, but also asked the doctors if he would soon be able to return to work. The guy did not want to lose either a place at a construction site or money. But not all was well, and the path to recovery was not easy.

Neither Williams nor Harlow believed in a happy outcome and only tried to alleviate the suffering of the victim. At a time when there were no antibiotics, they could only bandage him, clean the wound and pray. Very soon, Gage became worse - a purulent abscess formed inside the inlet and the patient began to have a fever. Dr. Harlow operated immediately and removed 250 ml of pus. After that, they decided not to bandage the wound and simply installed a drain in it.

Oddly enough, but Phineas Gage recovered. He was fired from the construction site, and he returned to his native place. There, the man became so strong that just 2 months after the injury, he began working on the farm. Maybe this is where his story would have ended if not for his saviors. Dr. Williams and his colleague Harlow wrote an article about Gage's case for a medical journal. She shocked the scientific world of the United States and the luminaries of science showed interest in "a man with a crowbar in his head".

Gage was quickly found on his farm, washed, dressed in a frock coat, and sent to Harvard. There, as a unique case, the man was shown to students and guests from other universities. For a job that can hardly be called dusty, Phineas Gage received some money, which he had enough to live on. But then Gage realized that soon his hole in his skull would become small and stop feeding him. Therefore, Phineas signed a contract with the Barnum Circus, where onlookers were shown various anomalies and deformities. In addition, the American, in whom a commercial vein woke up, began touring the country's universities.

But Gage's success was short-lived and over time, interest in him faded. After a couple of years, the man was forced to return to physical labor and got a job as a groom somewhere in New Hampshire. Then he completely left the United States and found work in Chile, becoming a coachman of the post stagecoach.

Phineas Gage did relatively well for 12 years. But then his health began to deteriorate rapidly. The poor fellow began to have epileptic seizures, and had to leave his job at the post office. Gage was forced to return home to San Francisco, where he died surrounded by family and friends during another attack in May 1860. He was only 36 years old.

Later, Phineas' mother recalled that the injury did not go unnoticed for her son. Before the accident, he was a quiet, God-fearing guy who dreamed of a family. But after brain damage, his character changed. Gage became short-tempered, grumpy, and sometimes showed aggression towards those around him. Everything was complicated by sexual preoccupation, which brought a lot of trouble to others.

Gage's body was buried in one of the San Francisco cemeteries. But the man was not allowed to rest in peace. In 1867, Dr. Harlow came to his mother and asked permission to exhume the body. It is not known whether the doctor paid the woman money or convinced her to decide for the glory of science, but she gave him the go-ahead. The body was exhumed, and Phineas' skull went to the doctor's personal collection. Harlow also took with him the same scrap that Gage kept at home.

Harlow wrote many articles about the Gage case, and when the topic had exhausted itself, he donated the skull to Harvard University. It and the steel ramrod can now be seen at the Warren Anatomy Museum. In 2012, Phineas again served science. His skull was subjected to a computer scan. The study determined that the man had lost 4 percent of the cortex and 11 percent of the white matter of the brain.

The left frontal lobe of the brain was most affected. Her connections with the left temporal and right frontal lobes, as well as with the limbic system, were broken. That is why the patient's character changed: he became unbalanced, aggressive and unpredictable, incapable of long-term concentration and planning. These changes have been linked to damage to the frontal lobes of the brain, which regulate emotions, behavior, and decision making. Of course, such an injury could not affect the mental state of Gage, because the injuries were much more severe than with a lobotomy.