A Victorian railroad foreman survives a grisly accident, to lose his job and personality, to be marveled at, to scrape to rebuild his life anyway he can, and to change neuroscience forever.

SYNOPSIS:

Phineas Gage is a respected railroad foreman of Victorian times. He is having a normal day tamping gunpowder to blast rocks for a new railroad until an explosion sends him and the 3 foot long iron bar he uses for tamping into the air and the iron shoots through his skull.

He is miraculously not dead and not even unconscious. His crewmen rush to him to help. By the time he can be seen by a doctor, he is quite bloody and his brain can be seen pulsating from the top of his head. He vomits blood and a chunk of brain. Dr. Harlow, a caring country physician whom Gage already knows because he works for the railroad, diligently cares for him for several months. Gage keeps expecting to be well enough to go to work though he is hardly in fit shape. He goes in and out of delusional states and is at one point measured for a coffin. But eventually he does recover and goes home to his family: his mother, uncle, and sister.

He recovers for a few months, walking excessively, making up stories(for some reason), but getting stronger. He finally tries to get his old job back. That fails because he can’t or won’t follow rules anymore. He sees Dr. Harlow again and hurls obscenities at him as he exits because the doctor tells him he’ll have to follow rules to work or get along with people.

A Dr. Bigelow has found about his case and wants to meet him and show him to his college students. He goes, but this too is a frustrating experience for him. He’s a medical curiosity, not a man struggling to regain his life. After that, he becomes an exhibit for P.T. Barnum in his museum, where he is just to be looked at and made a spectacle of. He can’t speak, interact with others, or be of any use. That doesn’t last long.

It is while working at a stable for a Mr. Currier that he gets comfortable and begins to regain some sense of responsibility and normalcy again. He enjoys working with the horses and having the respectable work. While there, he is noticed by a man from Valparaiso who wants him to drive his six-horse carriage in Chile. He agrees and sails around the American continent to a new life. It requires tremendous control and precision to drive these carriages and he does it with skill. A young Chilean lady, Eloisa, seems to have a fondness for him. It appears he has created a miraculously thriving life for himself. But the accident can’t be completely forgotten.

PHINEAS GAGE