It was 4:30 in the afternoon on September 13, 1848. A group of workmen were building a railroad in the town of Cavendish, in the US state of Vermont, close to the Canadian border. And one of those workers was young Phineas Gage, who was 25 at the time.
That day, his mission was to blast a rock to make way for the train tracks. To do this, he cut a deep hole in a rock. With the help of an iron bar, Gage put gunpowder into the hole.
This was the technique the workers normally used to detonate the rocks. And so he couldn't have imagined that a tragedy was about to happen. By an oversight, looking away to talk to a colleague while laying gunpowder, Phineas moved the iron bar, which came into friction with the rock and generated a spark.
The spark came into contact with the gunpowder and the deafening sound of a huge explosion echoed that late summer afternoon in the town of Cavendish. It seemed impossible that Gage could survive such a serious accident, but that's exactly what happened. And most impressively, he survived even after that.
The 6 kilo iron bar, 3 cm in diameter and over 1 meter long, went completely through Phineas Gage's head and ended up about 20 meters behind him. And yet the worker escaped alive. And it wasn't for a few days.
Gage lived for more than a decade after the accident. But that shocking event in Vermont would change not only his life forever, but also the history of neuroscience. Just before I go on, why don't you learn a new skill today, such as using generative AI to make your life and work easier?
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And now back to the video and the story of the man who changed our understanding of the brain. The iron bar entered Gage's body through his left cheek and exited through the top of his skull. Desperate, his coworkers took him to doctor John Horlow, who, on seeing the damage, had no doubts and gave the diagnosis.
Virus. Just kidding, it was just to break the attention span, the story is sad. Actually not that sad, he survived.
In fact, John Horlow found that Phineas was suffering from a very serious hemorrhage, he rushed to stop the bleeding, but something caught his eye. Although that image was frightening, Gage seemed to be perfectly conscious. He wrote that the patient dealt with his suffering with the most heroic firmness.
He recognized me at first and said he hoped he wasn't too badly hurt. Yeah, imagine, it's nothing, it's just a bar about that big. Horlow then shaved off Gage's hair, wiped the blood off with the needle, removed bone fragments and took out a few pieces of brain that were lying around.
Then he sewed up the holes and put a stylish cap on Phineas' head. Although he was conscious, the first few days of his recovery were quite delicate. On the first day, Gage had convulsions and agitation in his arms and legs.
And on the second, he lost control of his mind and began to rave. And as the days went by he showed varying symptoms. The doctor described, for example, that his eyeballs became protruded.
And that the patient began to exhale foul-smelling breath from his mouth. And the bizarre thing is that the guy was in this situation and the doctor was worried about his breath. But there's a reason to worry about your breath.
Because fungus has started to grow in the wounds on Gage's head. And the doctor had to apply a caustic product. And when he solved one thing here, something else came up there.
There were so many problems going on at the same time in one person's body that the situation seemed irreversible. Friends had even prepared the coffin. He was doing very well as a friend.
Until the unexpected started to happen. Gage started to improve rapidly. Less than a month after the accident, Gage was able to stand up.
In a few more weeks, he began to take his first steps. Walking around the house, up and down stairs. Until November, just two months after the tragic day of the accident, Phineas Gage was able to walk as he had before the accident.
And I wonder what his friends did with that coffin. I mean, he didn't walk exactly like he used to. The miracle he'd been through was beginning to take its toll.
Although he was physically fine, something had changed in his personality. Gage, who according to reports at the time was a quiet and polite boy before the accident, started acting quite differently. He became rude, angry.
The affectionate way he used to have has given way to an indomitable temper. The responsible worker has basically turned into an inconsequential young man. Attacks of rage became commonplace and he became very difficult to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
So much so that the railway company where he had returned to work after the accident ended up sending him away. Without caring that he had been the victim of an accident at work. But the truth was that Phineas Gage had basically become someone else.
And you might even think, okay, if an iron bar over a meter long went through my head and disfigured my face, I'd be grumpy to say the least, especially after someone took the bar that pierced my skull and told me to pose for a photo. What's more, Gage's own doctor suspected that the explanation went far beyond a simple change of mule. Doctor John Hollow believed that the change in behavior had to do with the parts of the brain that had been affected by the accident.
And he was right, but the proof would only come years later. That's because Gage would live for a while longer. But without a job on the railroad, he started to wander around looking for work.
He spent some time helping out on the family farm, then he worked in a stable and even became a circus attraction. In the end, he even ended up in South America, where he worked as a coachman in Chile, before returning to the United States to live with his mother again. It's just that his health was gradually deteriorating.
At the end of the 1850s, Gage became very ill. Then the convulsions returned, more and more frequently. Until on May 21, 1860, at the age of 36, and 12 years after the explosion that changed his life, Phineas Gage died.
I hope his friends saved that coffin for this moment. But despite the early farewell to life, Gage's importance to the history of science was only just beginning. Remember the doctor John Horlow, who believed that Phineas Gage's personality change was a direct consequence of brain damage?
So he asked the family and got permission to exhume the body. And then he began to study Gage's skull. And the discoveries that began to be made from that case revolutionized neuroscience forever.
The studies showed that the iron bar hit what we now know as the frontal lobe. This part of the brain is responsible, among other things, for our personality. For example, our emotions, the way we express ourselves, the way we deal with other people.
Everything passes directly through the frontal lobe, even an iron bar. That was a bit heavy. But inside the frontal lobe, an even more specific area was hit.
The prefrontal cortex. This is responsible for logical reasoning and controlling our own thoughts. The prefrontal cortex is the last part of our brain to develop.
It only really becomes ready after the age of 20. And that's why many teenagers tend to act on impulse and are so temperamental. But precisely because of all this, the case of Phineas Gage was also fundamental for neuropsychology.
This is the area of psychology that studies how the brain affects cognitive function, in other words, reasoning, memory, behavior and emotions. And the studies on this case have also generated an intense debate in phrenology, which is a pseudo-science that relates the physical shape of the skull to people's intelligence. Supporters of this movement claimed that the story of Phineas Gage proved them right.
But phrenology fell apart a long time ago. Gage's story also played an important role in the lobotomy, which is a surgery that cuts out parts of the brain to treat illnesses such as schizophrenia, even depression. Some even consider this case to be the first lobotomy in history.
But although the creator of this type of procedure, the Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz. . , won a Nobel Prize in Medicine for this invention, lobotomy is no longer practiced today because of the serious long-term side effects it caused.
Both phrenology and lobotomy provide us with important food for thought. Science is constantly changing. Just like the world it studies, science itself evolves every day.
And the interpretation of scientific facts is subject to change. The case of Phineas Gage is proof of this. His story has served to support and refute theories.
And even today, 200 years after his birth, his story still influences scholars and feeds curious interest all over the world. His skull is even on display at the Warren Anatomical Museum at Harvard University in the United States. As well as the famous iron bar that he transformed, albeit unintentionally, Phineas Gage's name into one of the most important names in the history of neuroscience.
Another reminder of the case is back in the small town of Cavendish, where the accident took place. A plaque installed in a stone details for new generations what happened. The case is so symbolic that, even after all this time, it is still being studied.
In 2012, the accident was reproduced in a laboratory by American scientists. They stuck an iron bar through the head of a volunteer playing a joke. Everything was simulated on the computer.
Through digital mapping in three dimensions, the researchers found that Phineas Gage had lost an impressive 15% of his brain mass. But in the same year, 2012, a very similar case happened again in real life. And do you know where?
Here in Brazil. More precisely, in Rio de Janeiro. A 2-meter-long piece of rebar fell from a height of 15 meters and went through the head of 24-year-old worker Eduardo Leite.
Like Gage, he remained conscious and recovered quickly. Doctors warned that Eduardo could have mood swings, difficulties planning his life and relating to people, certainly influenced by the Phineas Gage case study. But unlike the American worker, the Brazilian says he didn't have any major mood swings.
In an interview ten years after the case, he says that he hardly has any after-effects, but that he takes daily medication to prevent seizures. Like Phineas Gage, Eduardo Leite's case is also being intensively studied by scientists today. But why do stories like this move us so much and arouse so much interest?
And the explanation also lies in our minds. Human beings are attracted to understanding everything that defies logic, the curiosity that drives us. Ever since we came out of our caves to explore the world, when we left the continents to explore the seas and when we left the earth to explore space.
It's this sense of curiosity that makes us want to uncover all the manifestations of the unknown. Rare cases like that of Phineas Gage, which seems impossible to happen, are so fascinating because they ultimately bring us face to face with the mystery of life. In a way, the organ that survives such a great trauma is, in the end, the same organ that unravels how this was possible.
The brain, the only organ in the human body that invented its own name, helps us understand how it works. He's the one who asks the questions and he's also the one who brings the answers and asks the next questions. After all, what else can our brain be capable of?
I hope that, like me, you were fascinated by the story of Phineas Gage. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and comment on which video you would like to see here on Ciência Todo Dia. Thank you very much and see you next time!
