The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1893-01-25
A CrOHbar in His Skull.

A correspondent of the Medical and
Surgical Reporter writes: While in Bos-
ton recently saw this skull and bar, and
made the enclosed basty sketch.
The story of this uncanDy object is as
! follows:
| Phineas Gage, aged twenty-five years,
native of Lebanon, N. H., was foreman
of gang of men who were employed in
blasting rock at Cavendish, VT Gage
had never had days illness from child
hood, and was, as far as could be deter
mined, perfectly healthy.
At the time of the accident, on Sep
tsmber 13, 184S, he was charging drill
hole for blasting, and sat on shelf of
rock above, but trihe to the right Of
tins hole, as he faced it. The powder
and fuse were in position, and hs was in
the act of tamping it in. He turned his
head for an instant to look at his men at
work behind him. His iron struck fire
on the edge of the hole, an explosion
followed, and the tamping bar, three feet
seven inches long, one-fourth inch at the
small enc, about one and one fourth
inches at the large end, weighing about
fourteen pounds, was projected upward
obliquely in the line of its axis, passing
completely through his head and high
into the air, falling several reds behind
him, and was attervard picked up by
one of the men, covered with blood and
particles of brain. The man was thrown
I upon his back by the force of the blow
and his extremities moved convulsively
few times, but he spoke In a few min
utes. His men carried him to the road 8
snort distance away and he rode home in
an OK cart sitting up by being supported
When be arrived at his destination be
got out of the cart himself with little
assistance, and an hour afterward walked
upstairs with little aid and lay down
upon the bed, where his wound was
dressed. He was conscious, but very
weak from loss of blood.
The examination of the wound show ed
taat the iron entered the left side of the
face by the pointed end Immediately an
terror to the angle of the lower jaw
passed obliquely backward, emerging in
the median line, back of the frontal bone
near the coronal sutufe. The bones were
broken in small fragments and forced
upward and outward. The hole hac
mach the shape of an inverted funnel
the edges of the scalp everted and the
frontal bone badly frastured, leaving an
irregular oblong opening in the skull TIVE
inches one way and three and half thu
other, through which the pulSations o.
the brain were distinctly seen and felt.
The wound was dressed and the mar
showed az apparent signs of serious in
jury excepting curious agitation of the
legs, which were alternately retrscted
and extended. Then began battle, the
natural consequences of such an accident
against the strong constitution of 6
hsalty man. No one thought it possible
tina. he could recover, but after few
days he began TO improve and the fifty
sixth day from the accident the patient
was Up and walking about the house snc
piazzs. The sixty-fourth day be caught
cold and serious consequences were, for &
time, feared, but be recovered.
After that Gage was in good heal!t
and flesh, but 10 his mind was weak and
childish, and the sight of the left eye wal
entirely lest He visited South America
PISSED sometime in Valparaiso, ther
vent to San Francisco, where his mother
he'd moved. He died there of epilepsy
May 81, 1861, nearly thirteen years after
the accident. The skull and iron are
now ia the museum of The medical de-
partmsnt of Harvard University.