152 THK NKKVOUS SYSTKM AND ITS CONSERVATION 



danger of being too dogmatic with regard to the local 

 functions of the brain. \Ve are reminded of this when we 

 con-ider the extremely unequal results of various brain 

 injuries. Sometimes profound effect- follow what seems 

 quite limited destruction; sometimes extensive lesions 

 leave no noticeable deficiency. Gunshot wounds of the 

 brain are usually fatal, but they are not always so. Mini it 

 is to be remembered that a bullet penetrating the brain 

 substance works havoc with the structure far beyond its 

 own path, displacing the tissue and producing pressure 

 in distant places. There have been extraordinary cases 

 of immunity from serious consequences when the brain 

 has suffered gross harm. Of those carefully recorded. 

 none is more remarkable than that of Phineas (Jage. 1 



The accident which befell this man occurred in t he- 

 year 1848, when the Rutland Railroad was under con- 

 struction in southern Vermont. It happened near the 

 village of Cavendish, where a rock cut was being made. 

 ( lage, who was one of the workmen, WMS tamping a charge 

 of blasting-powder in a deep hole which had been drilled 

 into the ledge. The explosive \VMS ignited and the massive 

 iron bar was torn from the hands of Gage and driven 

 through his skull. It entered his left cheek and went out 

 through the top of his head, having pushed before it a 

 cylindric body of gray and white' matter from the left 

 hemisphere. The victim did not even lose const-ion 

 ness. He survived for twenty years, and it is not known 

 that he showed any abnormalities excepting blindness in 

 the left eye. This was due to the clipping of the optic 

 nerve on that side and not to any cerebral damage. 



'Sec tlir siiitciin'iii of (Jake's physician, Williams, in t lie 

 k of MM- Rutland I{;iiln>:id, "Tin- Heart of (lie ( irccn Moun- 

 tains," is 1 . 17. 



