Phineas Gage

25 year old Phineas Gage worked for a railroad construction company.  Unfortunately, one day he made a mistake that caused an explosion, sending a 3 foot long, 75 pound iron rod shooting through his head.  It entered just under his left eye and exited out the middle of his head, landing 30 feet away.

You would think Phineas would be a goner.  But you'd be wrong.  The man sits up after the accident, talking about the explosion.  He's unaware of his injuries.  He chats with the doctor as if it was a normal day, nothing out of the ordinary.

You think this is a fictional tale?  Nope.  It's a true story and it happened in 1848.  In addition to losing the sight in his left eye, his personality changed.  Phineas became rude and easily angry.  He became compulsive, giving up his job to race stagecoaches.  He started having seizures.  Doctors and scientists began studying the brain, trying to figure out why the rod going through the portion of the brain it did would change him so greatly.  The field of neuroscience was born.  Check out the pic of the handsome fellow holding that rod that changed his life forever.

Why do I bring this up?  Because I want you to read this book!

Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science

By John Fleischman

Genre: Non-fiction

My Rating: 5 stars

My review: This book is fascinating!  Some of the pictures may be a little gruesome, but I found them rather interesting and helpful for understanding the accident and the brain.  John Fleischman writes in an engaging way that begs you to keep reading and turning the pages.  I found this to be a treasure trove of interesting information.  

I was a middle school English teacher for 3 years. Mention non-fiction to students and most will groan.  Enter this book.  My final year of teaching I taught this book during our non-fiction unit.   

The kiddos were fascinated!  They loved it!  They asked lots of thoughtful questions (and a few random ones too) about science, the brain, pain, medicine in the 1800s, etc.  Some even did more research on the guy.  

The only thing they didn't like was the fact that there's an entire chapter about neurons, cells, infection, etc that they found kind of boring, but applicable to what they were learning in their life science class.  If you get bored, skip it.  The fascination picks up after that chapter with how Gage was affected after the accident.