Why Brain Scientists Are Still Obsessed With The Curious Case Of Phineas Gage
In 1848, a railroad worker survived an accident that drove a 13-pound iron bar through his head. The injury changed his personality, and our understanding of the brain.
It took an explosion and 13 pounds of iron to usher in the modern era of neuroscience.
In 1848, a 25-year-old railroad worker named Phineas Gage was blowing up rocks to clear the way for a new rail line in Cavendish, Vt. He would drill a hole, place an explosive charge, then pack in sand using a 13-pound metal bar known as a tamping iron.
But in this instance,, an associate professor of neurology at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.
