This Tragic Accident Changed How We Think About the Brain

In schools, universities and colleges around the world, a story gets told about a man named Phineas Gage. He was an American railroad foreman, until one day when an iron rod shot through his head and nearly killed him. After that, he was never the same. In fact, he was something of a monster, a man with limited inhibitions or impulse control, a social outcast.

It’s a story that has shaped neuroscience and our understanding of the brain. But what if it’s only partially true? 

Sam Kean spent years collecting mercury from broken thermometers as a kid, and now he's a New York Times best-selling author of books like The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons: The History of The Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery. He tells host Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Mastermind) how his research has uncovered that the story of Phineas Gage is far more nuanced, and far more surprising, than you might expect. 

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