Today I Learned (TIL)

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TIL that in 1848 a railroad worker survived an accident where an iron bar pierced through his head, destroying most of his left frontal lobe. However, his personality and behavior changed considerably (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 10 months ago by garfaagel@sh.itjust.works to c/til@lemmy.ca

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[–] Paraneoptera@sopuli.xyz 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for bringing up MacMillan. Manon Auffret has more recently researched the newspaper coverage of Gage, and her research adds a great deal of evidence supporting MacMillan's arguments. Basically, there's a lot of sensationalist and verifiably false stories about Gage. There's no evidence from the time period of personality changes, and a lot of the wild stories appeared decades after his death, probably fabricated. Allegedly Gage was a drunk, but the evidence shows he abstained completely. Allegedly he beat his wife, but evidence shows he was never married. Allegedly he was a circus performer but there's no evidence from the time period to support this.

https://n.neurology.org/content/98/18_Supplement/1560

[–] DrBob@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

Well thank you for pointing me to the abatract. Makes me want to see the actual poster.