Lost Photo of Medical Marvel Phineas Gage Found on Flickr

by Terrence O'Brien on January 25, 2010 at 09:01 AM

Lost Photo of Medical Marvel Found on Flickr

Phineas Gage is legendary for two reasons: surviving a tamping iron through the head before the age of modern medicine (There wasn't even anesthetic in 1848 when he suffered the accident while laying train track.); and sustaining a drastic change in personality as a result of the brain injury. Despite all the medical and psychological studies inspired by this marvel, Gage, himself, has remained an elusive historical figure. All that remains is the spike and his skull, displayed in the Warren Anatomical Museum at Harvard Medical School.

That is, until recently, when Jack and Beverly Wilgus posted a photo, titled "One Eyed Man with Harpoon" to their Flickr page. The image, which they discovered in 1968, was posted roughly a year ago, at which point the story began to slowly unfold online. Commenters, and whaling experts, pointed out that the metal instrument was not a harpoon. Eventually, one commenter named Michael Spurlock wondered, "maybe you found a photo of Phineas Gage?"

Beverly Wilgus started to do some research and everything fell into place. The inscription on the metal spear in the photo matched the one on the tamping iron hanging in the museum, and the man in the photo was missing his left eye, which Gage lost as a result of his accident.

Harvard has yet to confirm that the pictured man is, in fact, Gage, but museum curator Dominic Hall told NPR he's confident that the two men are one and the same. Hall went on to say, "Before, when you're thinking of Gage, you think of a skull, or you think of a life cast, or you think of an iron, but now, there's this image." [From: NPR]

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Tags: flickr, history, phineas gage, PhineasGage, top

Comments

Gary WilkesJan 25th 2010 5:27PM

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Terence, a minor correction - in 1842, Dr. Crawford Long used ether as anesthesia to remove two tumors from a patient - six years before Gage had his accident. It is possible that he underwent the removal under the influence of anesthetic. Additionally, the use of opium as an anesthetic dates back to 1500 BC.

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solutionn08Jan 25th 2010 11:05PM

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I might be wrong but I'm sure I have seen this photo in an old encyclopiedia;or an old schoolbook before.If someone out there in cyberworld looks around this is a copy of an old photogragh,I'm sure I'seen this before.

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Michael SpurlockFeb 4th 2010 5:29PM

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I'll not say it's impossible, but it's very, VERY unlikely, solutionn08.

In 1989, while researching for a pitch to make a documentary about Gage, I conducted an exhaustive Rights and Clearances search for any images of him.

The only representations of the man were drawings, and only one was supposedly contemporary with his time. We now know it wasn't even remotely a likeness. More like a schematic of the injury, evidently not based on life. The drawing most people remember, created for Ripley's, was also not based on life or any other image and unfortunately depicted him as having the bar still in his head, as if he walked around that way.

As for the possibility of the image knocking around the Internet before it was posted to Flickr, that's also highly doubtful. The only copy of this particular daguerreotype was, and is, still in the possession of the owners, who acquired it in 1968, I believe.

All that said, since Gage spent some time as something of a showman, I'm confident other images will be identified and appear eventually. Because now we know what he looked like, and what to look for. But those images, being precious as historical and delicate items, probably heirlooms, may still be in a drawer someplace, waiting to be found. Daguerreotypes weren't cheap, so there would be no more than a handful, though.

And really, two of the best historical and scientific sleuths in the business have been stalking Gage for decades. I feel they'd have found images if they'd been out there.

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