Phineas Gage was a foreman with a crew of railroad navigators. One autumn day in Vermont, 1848, he was tamping down an explosive charge inside an overhanging rock outcrop when the powder ignited. The explosion turned the 3ft 7in rod into a missile, driving it clear through Gage’s skull and out the other side. Gage not only survived the accident but remained conscious, even during the bumpy oxcart ride to his lodgings where a local doctor examined him, later saying: “The parts of the brain that looked good for something, I put back in.”

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