An iron rod shot through his skull and rewrote neuroscience

In 1848, railroad foreman Phineas Gage survived an explosion that drove a 13-pound iron rod through his frontal lobe and out the top of his skull. He was conscious minutes later and could walk and talk. His case, documented for decades afterward by his doctor, became one of the first pieces of evidence that specific brain regions govern personality and decision-making.

— John Martyn Harlow, Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar through the Head — Publications of the Massachusetts Medical Society, 1868