From: Alex Chernavsky <alex@astrocyte-design.com>
Category: Urban legend
Date: 21 Jan 2000
Time: 15:41:23
Remote Name: 24.161.64.23
No, I didn't get a piercing -- I understood one of the more esoteric jokes in that last post.
<<4.Forget the Prince Albert -- you're getting a Phineas Gage!>>
Phineas Gage was a railroad construction foreman in Vermont during the mid-1800s. His claim to fame? An explosion sent a long, thick metal spike clean through his head. He lived, but his personality changed quite a bit. His case is famous in neurobiological circles, since Gage essentially gave himself a lobotomy (Todd -- I'm sure your S.O. knows about this case). For more information, see the following web page (it has cool pictures of skulls and stuff):
http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n02/historia/phineas.htm
(By the way, there's a typo in that page -- where it says, "fullmouth" it should be "foul-mouth".)
More information:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22phineas+gage%22
- Alex "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy [well, actually, I'm not so sure anymore]" Chernavsky