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Phineas Gage Research Paper

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Harvard University is the pinnacle of social and academic success. Just the name, Harvard, brings to mind twenty year-old future business leaders and politicians gathering around in the library to discuss stock options and boating knots while they finish up their assignments for macro-economic courses. Exciting for some, but for most, as dull as it gets. Yet, after visiting the campus, I have come away with a very different perspective of Harvard. There’s a lot of strange and interesting stuff there—the famous Widener Library, named after a victim of the Titanic disaster, the comically ridiculous Lampoon Building, and a book bound in human flesh in the rare books library just to name a few. It makes sense that a university older than the United States –Harvard was established in 1636—to house a few oddities. Perhaps the most interesting one resides in a glass display case within Harvard’s Medical School Library, the skull of Phineas Gage.

What in the world is the skull of Phineas Gage, and why would anyone want to see it? Good question. That’s just the question that led me to take the train from Harvard’s central campus to the university medical school on the other side of the city. Yet, before seeing the skull, I needed to find out what made it so unique.

Phineas Gage was just your average railroad worker in 19th century America. He began working as a railroad construction foreman in the mid-1840s. His primary job was to handle explosives when the crew needed to …show more content…

Today, Gage’s story is a fixture for any student of psychology or neurology. After his death in 1860, Gage’s skull and the iron rod were donated to the Warren Anatomical Museum of Harvard University where they remain on display today. So, on a warm Boston summer day, I made my way to the museum to see the skull and rod for

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