Massachusetts Museum Features the Skull of a Man Impaled by Iron Rod

A museum in Massachusetts houses the skull of a celebrity.

Well, not the kind of celebrity who lives in Hollywood and stars in our favorite movies. No, this person is known for a much more bizarre reason.

Phineas Gage is the name and there's a fascinating reason his skull is preserved at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.

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Who Was Phineas Gage?

In 1848, Gage was a 25-year-old foreman of a crew-cutting railroad bed in Vermont. Workers used tampering iron to pack explosive powder into holes. During one job, the powder exploded. Gage should have been fatally injured when an iron bar penetrated his face, ripping through his skull and exiting through his brain.

Although Gage miraculously and surprisingly survived the explosion, the bizarre effects of the freak accident etched his name into history.

Doctors discovered that the trauma of the incident completely altered Gage's personality. The bar pierced his frontal lobe. Essentially, he became a whole new person and never acted the same. His accident highlighted an early link between trauma and personality change.

Where is Phineas Gage's Skull today?

in 1860, 12 years after the accident, Gage died from related seizures.

Today, his skull is located at Harvard's Warren Anatomical Museum in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine. It's one of America's last-surviving anatomy and pathology museums.

The iron bar and a mask of Gage's face made while he was alive are among the most popular features at the museum.

As of February 2024, the museum is not open to the public but that could change. More information is available by contacting Harvard's Countway Library.