Countway Library

This guide to the Countway Library in Boston follows railroad foreman Phineas Gage, who in 1848 survived an iron rod blasting straight through his skull in a Vermont accident, and the doctor who met him found him sitting up and talking clearly. It traces how Gage's personality changed afterward, his stint exhibiting himself at P. T. Barnum's American Museum, and why a Harvard physician sought him out two years later. Look for the tamping iron displayed alongside the object this story is really about.