'\rmcr FlG- 399. Skull of Phin- 



long eas P Gage> pierced by a 



Multiple Ego Several Persons in One. 943 



ward and backward so as to emerge in the median line on the top of the 

 head at the back part of the frontal bone, near the coronal suture. 

 Gage was thrown upon his back and moved his extremities convulsively 

 a few times, but spoke in a few minutes. He was carried some rods to 

 the road, and then rode in an oxcart three-quarters of a mile, supported 

 in a sitting posture. He got out/ of the cart with little assistance, and 

 an hour afterward aided only by Dr. Harlow, 

 walked up a long flight of stairs and got upon 

 his bed. The wound bled profusely; the brain 

 protruded through a hole in the skull two inches 

 wide by three and a half inches long, and shreds 

 of brain hung upon his hair. While searching 

 for fragments, the doctor passed the two fore- 

 fingers into the two openings so as to meet ; but 

 this was scarcely felt by the patient. His mind 

 was clear for two days, but he was then more or 

 less delirious for about ten days ; then he had a 

 lucid interval followed by a serious relapse when 

 his life was despaired of. But on the 28th day 

 he was very clear in his mind ; stated '. 



he had been in bed, how he was injured, and the crowbar ' Sept; is, 1848. 

 circumstances attending it. On the 56th day, less than two months 

 after the injury, Gage was improving in every respect ; sat up most of 

 the day; ate and slept well ; walked up and down stairs and into the 

 street. On the 64th day he caught cold from exposure, but the relapse 

 lasted only a few days and he improved steadily until three and a half 

 months after the injury, when the opening on the top of the head had 

 closed over. In April, 1849, seven months after the injury, his condi- 

 tion was as follows : ' ' General appearance, good ; stands quite erect, 

 with his head slightly inclined toward the right side ; walks steadily ; 

 his movements are rapid and easily executed ; vision of the left eye 

 lost ; partial paralysis of left side of face; has no pain in head, but 

 says it has a queer feeling which he is not able to describe. Is unde- 

 cided whether to work or travel ; but his former employers, who regarded 

 him as their most efficient and capable foreman, considered the change 

 in his mind so marked that they could not give him his former place." 

 " The equilibrium or balance, so to speak, between his intellectual facul- 

 ties and his animal propensities, seems to have been destroyed. He is 

 fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which 

 was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his 

 fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his de- 

 sires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, 

 devising many plans of operation which are no sooner arranged than 



