Phineas Gage carried around the iron rod that had gone through his head.

1848 · 1860 · apart: 12 years

The 6 kg bar stayed with him for the rest of his life, and now it is displayed beside his skull in a Harvard medical museum.

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The event

• Phineas Gage and the iron rod1848 · Cavendish, Vermont. Blasting rock for a railway, 25-year-old foreman Phineas Gage had a metre-long iron rod driven clean through his skull. He survived, was talking within minutes and lived almost 12 more years, and his case became an early lesson in how the frontal lobes shape personality.

19th century

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