Cavendish, Vermont - Phineas Gage - Man With a Metal Rod in His Head

Cavendish, Vermont - Phineas Gage - Man With a Metal Rod in His Head

One of America's oddest celebrities is Phineas P. Gage, who had a metal rod blown through his head and lived to profit from it. Roadsideamerica.com Report...

Cavendish, Vermont - Phineas Gage monument

A plaque in the town of Cavendish, VT commemorates a freakish event that happened near the town on the 13th of September 1848. An explosion sent a 3 foot tamping rod through the cranium of Burlington Railroad foreman Phineas Gage. Gage survived the accident, but his personality was altered by the experience. Once level-headed and intelligent, he became a crazed, profane loony, carrying the tamping iron as a cane. His skull and the tamping iron are now on display at Harvard University's Countway Library of Medicine. The plaque in Cavendish shows a picture of Phineas's skull as well as a map to the site of the explosion. A quick walk along the railroad tracks will take you to the curve where the accident happened. [Ethan Crenson, 08/25/2002]

[RA: Though the town celebrated the 150th Anniversary of the accident in 1998, there's no recurring Phineas Gage Days festival, but there should be. Gage is part of a medical pop-culture pantheon that includes the Elephant Man, Chang and Eng, and Dr. Beaumont's "man with the window in his stomach." There's also a quirky Seattle-based band named Phineas Gage.]