Phineas Gage was maybe the most famous person to have severe brain damage. He was born July 9, 1823 and died May 21, 1860. Phineas was a railroad construction worker. He was working on putting dynamite in holes to destroy huge rocks in order to construct the railroad. He worked with a tamping iron which was 3 feet 7 inches long and weighed 13 ½ pounds. An accident occurred one day. Some of the dynamite he had placed exploded when he was putting it in the hole with his tamping iron. This explosion made the tamping iron burst out of the hole and with point first into the cheekbone of Phineas. The tamping iron went through his left cheekbone and into the left frontal lobe and continued to fly about 30 feet away from him. This injury, which seemed fatal, did not kill him, but changed his personality drastically. The people who knew him realized that he was then very angry and with a very short patience. He then became an aggressive man and could not retain his job for long. Concerning his friends, they said Gage was no longer himself. By studying the case of Phineas Gage, scientists discovered that the brain had different parts that have different functions. Brain localization is a theory in which scientists say that different parts of the brain control different functions. Brain lateralization is another theory that contradicts brain localization and states that the brain has two sides that control different actions and not different parts of the brain controlling different actions.
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