You may be familiar with the story of Phineas Gage, it's an enduring urban legend and fitting entry in the Ripley's Believe It Or Not canon, but his is a story that needs to be updated.
Phineas had an iron tamping rod driven completely through his head by a blasting cap while he was working as a railroad construction foreman, and he survived what should have been a life threatening injury with little more than damage to the frontal lobe of his brain. He was said to have changed overnight from a virtuous man to a terrifyingly sociopathic madman, but what really happened to poor old Phineas?
New evidence shows that much of what we know about Phineas Gage is fabricated nonsense, and that his story changes more often than an engineer changes his overalls.
Want to know the truth about Phineas? Read on to discover more about Phineas Gage, Neuroscience's Most Famous Patient