Phineas Gage Photo Found--UPDATED

Well, actually, it's a daguerreotype.  From an LA Times article:

Massachusetts photographers have unearthed the only known image of legendary brain-injury patient Phineas Gage, a daguerreotype showing the former railroad worker sitting in repose and holding the nearly 4-foot-long iron rod that pierced his brain without killing him.

Contemporary accounts suggest that Gage's personality was dramatically altered because he was disfigured in the accident, but the new image, to be published online next week in the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, shows a relatively handsome man -- confirming the belief of most experts that damage to his brain accounted for the changed personality.

I like how the second paragraph above connects the photo to our understanding of the famous case and not just to our morbid curiosity.  If you click on the small image of Gage in the L.A. Times article, you'll see a larger version.

Hat tip: Mind Hacks (which has some more to say about the photo).

Update: An emailer notes that a daguerreotype is considered a type of photograph.  So the first sentence of this post may have been misleading.

Comments

[Daniel S. Goldberg]

Does the article mean "contemporary" (our time) or "contemporaneous" (Gage's time)? I ask because I am unaware of virtually any contemporary accounts that attribute the changes in Gage's personality to disfigurement, though it would be extremely interesting from an historical perspective if that was how Gage's peers viewed the causal chain.

[Matthew L Lena (Boston, Mass.)]

Researchers such as Malcolm Macmillan and I hope readers can contribute to a fuller picture of Phineas Gage by helping with topics such as those listed below. Many are not on Gage directly, but rather people or places related to him. FOR MORE INFORMATION including how these relate to Phineas, please visit www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/PgQuestn.php .

Information might be in letters and diaries; medical and business records; town, police and court files; local newspapers; and archives of churches, hospitals and literary, professional, historical and genealogical societies. We especially hope organizations will search their one-of-a-kind materials not published in book form.

IN CHILE (1852-60): We want to know about Drs. William and Henry Trevitt, Masonic lodges, Methodist churches, and English-language newspapers, schools and businesses. Do you know anyone who can help with such things?

IN NEW ENGLAND (1848-54): Can you find newspaper or diary accounts of Phineas’ accident, of his travels exhibiting himself and his “iron,” or of his reported preaching at Methodist revivals in Sterling, Mass.? In Concord, NH records of the Abbot-Downing coachworks could identify “three enterprising New Englanders” who may have set up the coach line for which Phineas drove in Chile; in Hanover you might discover Phineas’ duties at Currier’s Inn, or a Dartmouth professor who met him; and somewhere in Wilton may be the papers of Henry Trevitt.

IN CALIFORNIA (1860- ): Where is the missing undertaker’s ledger showing where Gage died? What can you discover about Dr. William Jackson Wentworth (Alameda Co.) or the papers of Joseph Stalder (d.1931)? Are you descended from Phineas’s nieces/nephew Hannah, Delia, Mary, Alice, or Frank B.Shattuck? Can we learn more about Frank at the School for the Deaf?

IN OHIO (1860- ): Can you find anything about Henry Trevitt’s time at Starling Medical College in Columbus, Prof. J.W. Hamilton, or William Trevitt’s papers?

ANYWHERE: If you are related to the Cowdrey, Davis, Ames, or Kimball families, are you also related to Phineas’ doctor, John Martyn Harlow? Do you know of ship passenger lists (Boston, New York, Chile, Panama, S.F.) that might show Gage family movements? Do you have Gold Rush ancestors who stopped in Valparaiso, Chile? And of course, letters mentioning Gage could have gone anywhere.

There are more clues in Stillwater and Northfield, MN; Santa Clara, San Rafael, and S.F., CA; Cavendish, Castleton, Woodstock, and Burlington, VT; Lebanon and Enfield, NH; Albany, NY, Buda, IL, the National Library of Medicine, and other places. At www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/PgQuestn.php are details on how you can help by following such clues. Your help or inquiries to malcolm.macmillan@unimelb.edu.au will be very much appreciated.

We would be pleased to assist teachers (in New England, S.F., even Chile?) in creating a class project involving students’ search for family papers or local lore about Gage.