Tamping Iron In The Story Of Phineas Gage

The story of Phineas Gage begins on September 13, 1848. He worked on the railroad and a foreman. He had an accidentally explosion that occurred causing his tamping iron to go through his head. More specifically, it entered under his left cheek and came out of the top of his head. The left front part of his brain was destroyed but he may not have even lost consciousness. Dr. John Martyn Harlow treated him, Phineas survived and returned home. Months after the accident Phineas felt well enough to return to work, but he had changed in many ways. His work ethic and his overall personality had changed. He was now fitful, irrelevant, and grossly profane. So he went to work and Barnum’s American Museum in New York, then Jonathan Currier’s livery stable in Dartmouth Hotel, and drove coaches in Chile. However in 1858 his health declined and he returned to his family. He later regained his health again and found work at Santa Clara County on a farm. In February of 1860 he began to have epileptic seizures and was buried on May 23, 1860. …show more content…
The differences increased over time getting worse and worse. This may have to do with the entry of the tamping iron. They studied his skull, but no one actually knows the entry of the tamping iron. Phineas claims one thing, the doctor claims another, Dupuy claimed another, and the men that were with him the day of the accident have no idea. The entry of the skull was later found by Hanna Dasio who in 1994 used a computer based method, then Peter Ratiu with computer generated three-dimensional recon struction, finally Jack Van Horn and his colleagues verified that the damage was