During the late 1840s a railroad was built from Bellows Falls to Burlington, Vt., connecting with the Cheshire Railroad at North Walpole and to other rail lines to Boston. During construction, near Bellows Falls, an accident occurred that was viewed as one of the most remarkable cases in medical history.
Late on the afternoon of Sept. 13, 1848, 26-year-old construction crew foreman Phineas Gage was supervising some rock blasting to clear the way for the railroad. Gage was powdering a hole in preparation for a blast to loosen rock to be removed from the route. He either thought his assistant had already placed sand over the blasting powder or the rod slipped from his hand. Whatever the cause, the result was that the tamping iron dropped into the hole. The sand had not been applied on top of the blasting powder, however, and the iron rod caused a spark that ignited the powder and shot the rod from the hole as if fired from a gun.
Gage was leaning over the hole. The 3½-foot-long, l¼-inch-diameter rod entered his cheek, passed behind his left eye, through his brain, and exited through the top of his head. Gage was knocked flat by the blast. The other workmen ran to his aid. By the time they arrived at his side, Gage sat up. A minute later he began to speak.
He was placed in an ox cart to be taken to a doctor. Dr. Williams from a neighboring town came to attend to Gage, about a half-hour after the accident. While he waited for the doctor, Gage sat on the porch talking to his landlord. He was able to walk on his own and told the doctor he hoped he wasn’t hurt too badly.
The doctor was amazed that Gage was still alive. The damage to his head or swelling of the brain should have killed him. The 13½-pound rod had passed completely through his head, destroying much of his brain’s left frontal lobe. Exertions caused hemorrhaging and the loss of additional brain matter, but Gage soon began to heal.
The case became known far and wide and Gage traveled to Boston several times to visit specialists who wished to study his head and the resulting symptoms. On one such trip he stopped at the Keene railroad depot and exhibited his tamping rod to several local residents.
Gage traveled around New England with his rod, apparently sharing his amazing story.
The accident caused blindness in his left eye and paralysis of the eyelid. His friends, relatives and employer also reported a distinct change in his personality, suggesting that he became unreliable, short-tempered and uninhibited. He also began to have increasingly frequent severe seizures. Phineas Gage passed away in 1860 as a result of his terrible accident — 12 years after it occurred.
Alan F. Rumrill is executive director of the Historical Society of Cheshire County, which has been collecting, preserving and sharing the history of the region since 1927. It’s on Main Street. To learn more about its public programs and collections, visit hsccnh.org.
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