Neuroskeptic said:

I guess in the era before antibiotics most people who suffered penetrating brain injuries would have died of infection. There must have been people going around with frontal lobe tumours, abscesses, etc. but noone would have known.

Yeah, that was something that occured to me, but it might have also helped that the injury and incident were so dramatic. The iron flew clear through his head, taking out an eye on the way and landed a good 80 feet from him. It was a bit surprise that he lived at all. I’m sure that helped catch everyone’s attention. It’s a lot more dramatic than, for example, if someone were shot in the head with a bullet or something.

Brain damage, ever since the day I was born
Drugs is what they used to say I was on
They say I never knew which way I was goin
But everywhere I go they keep playin my song

Seriously though, I didn’t know the story behind the pictures of Gage: that’s really interesting. What’s always surprised me about the case is that he was the first person to come to public attention with frontal lobe damage. I guess in the era before antibiotics most people who suffered penetrating brain injuries would have died of infection. There must have been people going around with frontal lobe tumours, abscesses, etc. but noone would have known.

Amazing really, that this one incident could spur so many to start looking at the brain and how it worked.

It’s a shame he died so young. I wonder if it had to do with the injury? Sounds like it probably did, in some way.

It’s a very strange way to achieve immortal fame for an otherwise unknown railroad foreman in Vermont.

        DV82XL said:

Took me a second to realize that you were quoting the Pink Floyd song ‘Brain Damage’ and not commenting on deadatheism’s troll. Or where you?

In truth DV82XL, it was actually a comment about lunatics rather than the brain damaged, but you are right, it works well both ways.

        Chas, PE SE said:

Back to Phineas. A small nitpick: Phineas was tamping blasting powder into the hole, not dynamite, which was invented in 1866 and doesn’t need to be tamped anyway. Speculation is that the iron rod hit a flint pebble in the hole, causing a spark.

You’re right. I saw ‘dynamite’ somewhere about the incident. I should have known better and realized that was not accurate. Thanks. I corrected it.

Really though, it’s quite dangerous either way and not something that should really be done. If you have to get it in, give it one hard push but don’t hit it! Dynamite can sometimes leak a little nitroglycerin and that can cause an explosion in a shock. Dynamite is designed and manufactured not to do that, but if the manufacturing was shoddy or it’s old, it can “sweat” nitroglycerin.

Black powder is very sensitive to any spark and can also be shock sensitive if you hit it too hard. In tight packing it can be ignited very easily. Back when they had to pack it into muskets, the little finger was used to do the final push with the rod, because occasionally it would blow off your finger.

Being rough and ramming and shocking modern explosives like TNT, RDX or C4 is perfectly fine though. You can knock those around as much as you want and they won’t go off. They need a primary explosive, usually in the form of a blasting cap, to get them going.

        Finrod said:

The paper holds their folded faces to the floor, and every day the paperboy brings more…

Took me a second to realize that you were quoting the Pink Floyd song ‘Brain Damage’ and not commenting on deadatheism’s troll. Or where you?

Ether way, very good.

Still it is so true that much of what we know of the brain is the result of of the study of those poor folk who have sustained damage to some isolated part of an otherwise healthy organ. Their loss, is our gain.