Stabbed in the Brain: Phineas Gage

2010-06-29 · Hank · watch on YouTube · History & curiosities · curiosity idea

Hank, tired of philosophizing, simply tells the story of Phineas Gage, the 1848 railroad foreman who survived an iron rod through his head, ending with the 2009 discovery of his only known photograph on Flickr.

What is said

00:00:00 — Hank is worn out on philosophical musings and in general (planning conferences is hard), so he will just tell a story

★★ Hank says he is a bit worn out on philosophical musings and in general, because planning conferences is hard. — 00:00:00
★★ Instead of thinking too much, Hank will just tell the fascinating tale of Phineas Gage. — 00:00:07

00:00:15 — 1848: railroad foreman Phineas Gage tamps blasting powder without sand; the iron rod passes through his head and lands 80 feet away

★★ In 1848 Phineas Gage, a hard-working, well-liked railroad construction foreman, was helping blast a mountainside so a railroad could run through it. — 00:00:15
★★ Hank explains blasting: drill a hole, add powder, pack sand and tamp; distracted, Gage skipped the sand, his rod struck a spark, and the powder ignited. — 00:00:25
★★★ The iron rod went through Gage's head and landed 80 feet away. — 00:00:49

00:01:02 — Gage is conscious in three minutes, rides home, chats with the doctor; the doctor's notes (half a teacupful of brain); coma, coffin ready, walking and talking two months later

★★★ Three minutes later Gage regained consciousness, talked, got into a cart, sat up for the three-quarter-mile ride home and chatted with the doctor. — 00:01:08
★★★ Quoting the doctor's notes, Hank reports that Gage vomited and pushed out about half a teacupful of brain onto the floor. — 00:01:29
★★★ Gage drifted in and out of a coma from brain hemorrhaging; his family, told he could not live, readied his coffin, yet two months later he was walking and talking, basically normal. — 00:01:58
★★ Gage wasn't quite the same Phineas Gage; his behavioral problems cost him his construction job. — 00:02:19

00:02:29 — Lost job, P. T. Barnum's circus tour, recovery, stagecoach driver in Chile; epilepsy and death twelve years on

★★ P. T. Barnum found Gage and his iron rod, and Gage earned money touring the circuses. — 00:02:33
★★ His psychological problems subsided; he held good jobs and moved to Chile as a long-distance stagecoach driver where nobody knew who he was. — 00:02:39
★★ Twelve years after the accident late-onset epilepsy, very common in such injuries, set in, and his health declined until he died. — 00:02:49
★★★ Hank marvels that a three-and-a-half-foot iron rod passed through Gage's head at hundreds of miles per hour and he was pretty much okay for twelve years. — 00:02:57

00:03:05 — 2009 footnote: a Flickr photo titled 'The Whaler' identified by a commenter as the only picture of Phineas Gage; why Hank loves the internet

★★★ In 2009 a couple uploading their old-photograph collection to Flickr titled one 'The Whaler'; users said the iron was no harpoon, and a commenter suggested it was the only picture of Phineas Gage. — 00:03:05
★★ Hank says the identification is one more reason he loves the internet, because it was the only picture of Phineas Gage. — 00:03:37

00:03:43 — Behold Phineas Gage; see you Wednesday

★★ Hank calls Gage the only man ever to have had an iron rod pass through his skull at hundreds of miles per hour and live to tell the tale. — 00:03:43

Humor (significant)

Hank says he doesn't know what distracted Gage from tamping the blasting powder. — 00:00:36 > «Maybe it was a raccoon, maybe it was a hot girl walking down the railway.»
The doctor's notes say Gage vomited out half a teacupful of brain; Hank explains the obsolete unit. — 00:01:44 > «it's roughly-- WAY TOO MUCH BRAIN.»
Gage told the doctor he hoped he wasn't much hurt. — 00:01:55 > «To which the doctor presumably replied, "uhhh."»
After Gage lost his construction job over his behavior, a famous showman found him. — 00:02:33 > «but PT Barnum, not to miss a weirdo,»

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