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Talk:Phineas Gage

Latest comment: 9 months ago by Cerebral726 in topic Headnote
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Former good articlePhineas Gage was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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Pitch in
  • Labor relations, contractor/sucontractor, blasting skill: Macmillan 2000 discusses (a) Gage's status as a (sub?)contractor; (b) volatility of labor relations in contemporary RR construction; (c) the skill required in blasting -- relate to Gage's preaccident character, personality, and skill.
  • More on accident itself: A feedback item requested more on "how it happened":
    •  Done Not easy because Harlow and Bigelow (and people quoted by them) are slightly discrepant on this (was the sand omitted? was he speaking to his men? where was he sitting?) [Added re turned head etc, simply omitted the (minor) postural points on which Harlow/Bigelow disagree. EEng (talk)]
    •  Done In relation to this, more on the mechanics of blasting would help (there are plenty of out-of-copyright blasting manuals -- e.g. from DuPont -- that can be used). [diagram added, some EEng (talk)]
    •  Not done Other comments imply need to be more explicit that the iron passed through (i.e. wasn't lodged). [Text seems clear on this if they read to bit re iron found far away. EEng (talk)]
  •  Done Re "Crowbar": Confusion re connotation of a crowbar as having a hook/claw, variation on meaning of this term according to time and place -- still needs clarification. This may require some work on the articles on crowbar, pry bar etc. [Linked article's treatment seems adequate. EEng (talk)]
  • Re phrase "American Crowbar Case": Barker suggests that the frequency with which this term appears in 19th c literature reflects the ascendency of Bigelow's interpretation of the case, since he (and not Harlow) described Gage's iron as a "crowbar".
    • The specific origin of that specific phrase should be added to the article if possible.
  • "Bigelow describes the iron's taper as seven inches long, but the correct dimension is twelve": See whether modern catalog has this info
  •  Done "the best fit rod trajectory did not result in the iron crossing the midline as has been suggested by some authors" (such as H.Damasio) Need cite here both to H Damasio and to Van Horn's cite to it
  • General review of Van Horn Table 3 for material usable in article
  • Find material on missing molar such as Harlow 1868 p.17, Van Horn (several points)
  •  Done "Gage certainly displayed some kind of change in behavior after his injury" [r|macm_rehabilitating|page=12-15] Likely other papers + Macmillan 2000 can be cited here a well [[[User:EEng|EEng]] (talk)]
  • "Gage was hired by his employer in advance":
    • Need to check that cites given here cover this: "report was discovered calling Gage mentally unimpaired during his last years in Chile ... and since then a description of what may have been his daily work routine there as a stagecoach driver, and advertisements for two previously unknown public appearances"
    • More info/cites in Macmillan Gagepage, "Unanswered Questions", Wilgus, "Meet Phineas Gage"; and/or Wilgus/Macmillan "More about Gage"
  • In brain damage discussion, add Macmillan 2000, 2008; van horn p.14 re chain of brain damage uncertainties (blood loss, infection, bone fragments, path, position of brain, individual locations of regions)
    • Greenblatt Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2001, 75, 798-799 and (apparently a different paper) [1]
    • Macmillan 2000 p.82, 84
    • Bone fragments, infection etc. also mentioned at OKF p.469
  • Bring in discussion (Macmillan 2008) re the importance of the hinging effect in minimizing concussive effects -- this might be integrated with Harlow's quote re the shape of the iron and reasons for Gage's survival.  Not done Your humble colleague (I) has made a thorough search and cannot find this passage, which he concludes he may have hallucinated. EEng (talk)
  • Ordia, JI (1989). "Neurologic function seven years after crowbar impalement of the brain". Surgical Neurology 32: 152–155 discusses significance of projectile speeds below 1000 ft/sec in reduced concussive damage.
  • combined with the lack of information about his behavioral changes In addition to Macmillan 2000 p.290 there are likely additional Macmillan references on lack of info on behavioral changes; maybe Barker too
  • "managed to enlist Gage in support of their theories": Material at Macmillan 2000 p.188 should be brought in as well
  • Ferrier cited Gage as proof that it is [i.e. the brain is localized]:
    • In addition to Ferrier cite this section could use cites re conflicting claims on whether frontal lobes do or don't have any function
    • Localization and frontal function are the main 19th C tugs-of-war; there may be parallels in the 20th C as well
  • Re lobotomy non-relationship to Gage, see Macmillan 2000 cites to Valenstein
    • material from Valenstein may be useful here as well
  •  Done (EEng (talk)) Harlow (1868)[r|harlow1868] gives the date of Gage's death as May 21, 1861: Need pg#
  • American Phrenological J: could use more material from Macmillan 2000 pp.349-50 re similarities to Harlow 1848 etc.

Items taken Sept 2015 [2] from hidden notes in source:

  • For description of tamping iron, see material from Warren Mus. catalog, "smoothly blunt" point, etc.
  • Re the report that Gage's jaw was broken, the cites given may be duplicative; also, a secondary source describing the path of the iron in laymen's terms would be useful; also see Bigelow re coronoid process
  • There are slight conflicts among sources re punctuation and formatting of the tamping iron inscription
  • For Gage's "lecture" appearances, other potential cites are Meet Phineas Gage (Wilgus), More About Gage (Macmillan on Wilgus site), Unanswered Qs in Macmillan 2008
  •  Done The images File:Simulated Connectivity Damage of Phineas Gage 4 vanHorn PathwaysDamaged left.jpg and File:Simulated Connectivity Damage of Phineas Gage 4 vanHorn PathwaysDamaged right.jpg should be combined into a single image, with one caption. [[[User:EEng|EEng]] (talk)]


  • "The use of a single case [including Gage's] to prove opposing views on phrenology was not uncommon." Bring in fact that Harlow knew Gage before the accident, and possibly class-based expectations re social behavior.
  • Cerebral location section needs expansion
  • "both sides managed to enlist Gage in support of their theories" Bring in additional material from Macmillan 2000 p.188
  • Ferrier "absolutely dominating feature": Check page #s in {{ran|M5|p=198,253}; add material on basic question of whether frontal regions have any function at all; add more re Goulstonian Lecture's effect on opinion about Gage
  • "It is frequently said that what happened to Gage played a part in the later development of various forms of psychosurgery" Give specific examples of people saying this, plus mention Freeman's use of Gage story as a delay tactic with reporter
  • "Macmillan{ran|M|p=116-19,326,331} gives detailed criticism of Antonio Damasio's various presentations of Gage": See notes in Macmillan 2000 for pages cited, and other Macmillan papers may be useful on this as well; specify which of AD's works
  • Would be nice to have an img of the lifemask at the point it's mentioned.
  • "as could hardly have been done by any one in whose sagacity and surgical knowledge his 'confreres had any less confidence": further background on this should be available in Macmillan 2000 and Barker, possibly Macmillan, "John Martyn Harlow"
  • "A considerable number of medical gentlemen also visited the case at various times to satisfy their incredulity": {ran|M|p=42} page range may need expanding. Possibly this note could be integrated into the main text.
  • Some of the pdfs hosted at Countway/Warren Mus. site could be uploaded to Commons
  • Pagination problems:
    • Add pg #s to Ordia, Mitchell sources
    • Add pg #s to Wilgus (2009, J Hist Neurosci), Wilgus (2009, Daguerreian Soc.), Twomey cites
    • Harlow 1868: Journal version (seen in Macmillan 2000) versus offprint (seen in Commons images) (also need issue # in citation)
    • Macmillan 2008: version linked from the citation doesn't match the pagination from the version available as an offprint from publisher's website
  • Citations need checking (most can be found in Macmillan 2000):
    •  Done (EEng (talk)) rename=anonymous_C: Macmillan 2000 p.40n7 gives reprint information
    • Ref name=ferrier1877_9: check format and citation data
    •  Done (EEng (talk)) Harlow 1848: Harlow 1868 cites this as #20 of volume 39, but this needs confirmation
    • Jackson 1849: Give location in Macmillan 2000 where this is imaged or transcribed; get page # and check case # (and other details) of citation
    •  Done (EEng (talk)) Harlow 1849: Need specific date
    •  Done (EEng (talk)) Macmillan 2008: Check volume and issue #
  •  Done (EEng (talk)) Re "public appearances in the larger New England towns": Add Gage's visit to Bigelow in Boston and his presentation to the Boston Society for Medical Improvement (described in Macmillan 2000)
  •  Done (EEng (talk)) It was the first likeness of Gage identified since the life mask taken by Bigelow in late 1849.: Check the date of the life mask and that cites cover "by Bigelow"
  •  Done(EEng (talk)) Re Ratiu discussion of hole at base of cranium and "skull hinged open": Possibly this should be discussed in main text (instead of note) -- notice there is (or was) an image illustrating the "hinging".
  •  Done (EEng (talk)) The '1850 communication calling Gage "gross, profane, coarse, and vulgar"' should be added to the source list
  •  Done (EEng (talk)) "Most commentators still rely on hearsay and accept what others have said about Gage, namely, that after the accident he became a psychopath..." [r|kotowicz] Need page #
  •  Done (EEng (talk)) "Attributes typically ascribed to the post-accident Gage" [etc etc]: Each of these needs a cite (most are in Macmillan 2008 or 2000 -- or Kotowicz)
  •  Done (EEng (talk)) Harlow's relocation to Woburn should be mentioned. Sources: Macmillan 2000, Macmillan "Simple Country Physician"
  •  Done (EEng (talk)) The 1994 conclusion of H. Damasio et al., that both frontal lobes were damaged, was drawn by modeling not Gage's skull but rather a "Gage-like" one: Explain the "Gage-like" similarity issue
  •  Done Identify issue of s:Recovery from the passage of an iron bar through the head; Someone added a note in the wikitext: "something somewhere says n3 of v2"
  • Would it make sense to add a geo coord for the accident site?
  • Some of the subpage titles for the Phineas Gage Information Page seem to be out of date.
  • Cites in lead for "perhaps the first case to suggest that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific personality change", and those later for 'Gage is considered the "index case for personality change due to frontal lobe damage", are presumably saying much the same thing, so see about integrating them.
  • In this version [3], cites in lead re brain vs. personality, and injury to specific parts of brain vs. specific personality changes, need to be sorted out as to which cites are for which of those two
  • Maybe add some specific popcult examples
  • More could be said about Harlow's ideas re vis vitae, vis conservatrix, vis medicatrix naturae etc. (OKF p.58)
  • Nye cite apparently has the wrong author -- he seems to be the volume editor. The page #s need checking as well.
  •  Done JBS Jackson, "Medical Cases" is quoted as terming Gage "quite feeble and thin", but this is not reported in Macmillan 2000, p.93 -- check original. (Original MS checked.)

Prose difficulty

Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

First off, this article is great and I wish more articles were like it in tone. But I see that people have raised concerns over prose difficulty before, and it doesn't seem to have changed much. The long sentences and frequent parenthetical sentences confuse me at times. This is especially concerning in the lead, since we're supposed to write a level down. Is there a good reason to keep it this way? Cheers, Ovinus (talk) 11:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.

— Logan Pearsall Smith (1931). Afterthoughts]

Hi, Ovinus, and sorry I overlooked your post until now. If you don't mind my saying, I'm very glad for your perspective because (from your user page) you're in high school, and I know Gage is a popular topic in certain high school courses. I just ran the article through one of those automated scorers and got a Flesch grade level of 10; on the other hand, I ran just the lead through, and got (no kidding) grade 22 (whatever that means). But let's put the lead aside for now (though see prior thread). I'd be interested if you could pick three sentences/passages from the article proper which you found difficult and we can talk about them. Like all writers I'm married to my own prose; but I'm not completely opposed to divorce. EEng 03:27, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Haha yes, I actually learned about it a few months ago in my AP Psychology class! In general, I think the prose of the article itself is fine and relatively straightforward to parse, which agrees with your automated assessment. The parenthetical sentences are unusual, and I think could be used more sparingly, but the lead is of more concern given the "level down" guideline.
The following sentence induces fear:
Long known as the "American Crowbar Case"‍—‌once termed "the case which more than all others is cal­cu­lated to excite our wonder, impair the value of prognosis, and even to subvert our phys­i­o­log­i­cal doctrines"—‌Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, par­tic­u­larly debate on cerebral local­i­za­tion,​​ and was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in deter­min­ing per­son­al­ity, and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.
I suggest it be split up into two sentences, and the given quote shortened:
Long known as the "American Crowbar Case"‍—‌once termed "the case which more than all others is cal­cu­lated to excite our wonder"—‌Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, par­tic­u­larly debate on cerebral local­i­za­tion.​​ He was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in deter­min­ing per­son­al­ity, and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.
My rationale for shortening the quote is that "impair the value of prognosis, and even to subvert our phys­i­o­log­i­cal doctrines" is pretty difficult mid-19th century language, which a lot of readers wouldn't understand. It's a pretty quote—including it in the article body is certainly justified—but its inclusion in this sentence leads to a very long phrase set off by dashes.
Another scary sentence:
Despite this celebrity, the body of established fact about Gage and what he was like (whether before or after his injury) is small, which has allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have"—‌Gage acting as a "Rorschach inkblot" in which proponents of various conflicting theories of the brain all saw support for their views.
I'd suggest:
Despite his prominence, there is little established fact about Gage and his behavior before or after the injury, which has allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have". Gage acted as a sort of "Rorschach inkblot" in which proponents of various conflicting theories of the brain all saw support for their views.
I find this a bit easier to read. I was neutral on the "Rorschach inkblot" metaphor, but given that this is probably often read by psychology students, I think it's worthwhile. It made me smile, anyway. Pinging EEng. Ovinus (talk) 21:28, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
I've been distracted but don't want to lose this thread. Sort of pinging myself. EEng 01:09, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Ditto. BTW, I'm wondering if we should change this article to use tamping iron pronouns. Tryptofish, Levivich -- what think you? EEng 03:16, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Well, since you asked, tamp on. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:10, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

A surprising reassessment

Was discussing Gage for a psychology class last week and remembered this article. So I gave it another read, and I must say: I really like it, probably because I've become inured to drier articles and articles so dense with mostly irrelevant names that I barely remember anything. Good stuff, and I'm somewhat inspired for my future work. In particular, a liberal use of footnotes satisfies both my deletionist tendency to compact information and my desire for extra info for interested readers. Ovinus (talk) 02:28, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Good! Gooooood! Another conversion to the dark side! EEng

Inclusion of full birth and death dates in opening-sentence parenthetical

Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments2 people in discussion

With apologies for the delay (I hadn't noticed the last reversion), I'm reverting again the change [4] from

Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman ...

to

Phineas P. Gage (c. July 9, 1823 – May 21, 1860) was an American railroad construction foreman ...

because there's a substantial list of reasons that this change is a detriment to the reader's experience, and nothing at all has been offered to explain how it benefits the reader's experience.

or something like that, which would be completely stupid.

Against this, the "reasons" offered for including full dates (in the lead -- to repeat, they're already in the infobox) have been:

None of these say anything about how the reader is served by inclusion of this clutter in the article's opening, but merely assert that all articles should look alike -- the weakest of all possible arguments, and characteristic of editors who make the changes they want to the page according to their preconceived notions of what should be, and then flit off to their next victim, without ever considering whether the page really needed the change they made, or whether the change improved the article at all ... Their editing is an off-the-rack, one-size-fits-all proposition, premised on the idea that what improves one article, or one type of article, will automatically improve every other article or type of article ... [9].

John F. Kennedy's article makes an interesting contrast. For reasons that are surely obvious, a fair chunk of readers coming to that article actually do want to know right off (and possibly only) the date of his death. Full dates certainly belong in the opening of thatarticle.

Pending anyone explaining how full dates in the lead benefit the reader, I've reverted to the longstanding format. EEng 05:50, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

OK. Thank you for the detailed explanation. When I made the edit that I made, all that I had seen was:
  • "full birthdates are useless clutter in the lead" [10]
  • "Making all articles look alike is the weakest of all possible arguments, and this has been discussed several times. Full dates two words into the article are preposterously useless clutter. See MOS:BIRTHDATE." [11]
Pending anyone giving the far more thoughtful explanation that you have now given here, it looked to me like you were editing against consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
I didn't mean to include you among the editors who make the changes they want to the page according to their preconceived notions etc etc, but on the other hand I didn't want to omit your edit summary from the list I gave, lest someone accuse me of understating the support for the view opposing mine (misguided though it is). I figured you'd forgive me. EEng 05:43, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
No worries. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:18, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Good. So we settled the first line of the article. Only 887 lines to go! EEng 21:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Odd citation style

Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Is there a reasoning behind the strange citation style of this article? Why are some references demarcated by their "difficulty" while the others are listed as usual? Besides this, surely the letter system does not work as well as a normal style, as you cannot click the citation in the References section to see where a source appears in the main body? Medarduss (talk) 23:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

All I know is this is EEng's child. – The Grid (talk) 23:46, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
I assume that defaults to "not going to be changed"? ~StyyxTalk? 00:44, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
More accurately, it means "will be changed if the editors who actually care about the article reach a consensus that some other approach will better serve the reader's understanding, but won't be changed just because some drive-by editor thinks all articles should look the same." As to the original question:
  • The For general readers section, the For younger readers section, and the For researchers and specialists section identify sources which will be particularly useful to readers in those groups who want to learn more about the article topic. The Other sources cited section lists sources which, well, will not be particularly useful to those who want to learn more.
  • The {{ran}}/{{rma}} referencing system allows sources to be organized in logical, useful ways instead of the chaotic, random mish-mash seen in most articles.
  • Where a source appears in the main body is trivially found simply by text-searching for e.g. [M].
Quite substantial discussions (found primarily in Talk:Phineas_Gage/Archive_2) led to the decision to do things the way they're done. Any other questions? EEng 09:03, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments2 people in discussion

I first encountered {{ran}} on this page and see more discussion of it here than on the template page.

The template which creates the manual superscript has a bug on the Minerva theme used by the mobile site. You can see it if you use these links:

  1. https://www.search.com.vn/wiki/en/Phineas_Gage?useskin=Vector2022
  2. https://www.search.com.vn/wiki/en/Phineas_Gage
  3. https://www.search.com.vn/wiki/en/Phineas_Gage?useskin=Minerva

In each link try clicking the superscript callout links. In the first link, the desktop site has a tooltip and a functional link to References. The second and third links show the bug.

On the second link, the mobile site callouts for {{ran}} do nothing when clicked. The superscript callouts created by {{r}} and {{refn}} on this page will cause a popup with the reference. The popup is the expected behavior. The links from < ref >, {{efn}}, and {{sfn}} all create popups. The {{citeref}} template is slightly different and works on mobile the same way that it works on the desktop site (visible in the Notes section on: https://www.search.com.vn/wiki/en/Computer_mouse ); the superscript works as an in-page anchor link with {{citeref}}.

In the third link, the mobile skin (Minerva) is used on the desktop site. The tooltip still works, but something in Minerva breaks the link regardless of the desktop or mobile version.

I hope that this helps and that it is not a strange place to post a bug report. Rjjiii (talk) 02:27, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

This is above my pay grade. I suggest you post this at WP:VPT. EEng 04:04, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! Rjjiii (talk) 04:25, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
Just updating this thread. The rma/ran references now function on mobile. To implement a workaround, I needed to add "CITEREF" to the handwritten links on this article's references. As an unplanned bonus, those links now create the popup reference on desktop themes/browsers.Rjjiii (talk) 00:21, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Headnote

Latest comment: 9 months ago9 comments5 people in discussion

Should the headnote read

This article is about the man who survived an iron bar passing through his head

as EEng has reverted it back to and is the status quo, or should it read

This article is about the brain injury survivor

as I would prefer it. I believe the current version is strangely long and detailed. The succinct descriptor used in the short description is more than adequate to quickly describe the person before moving on to the next sentence For the UK musical band, see Phinius Gage. Any extra text than is needed is just clutter before you get to the real point of the header. Since I have been reverted and it seems clear we won't agree on this, I'm looking for anyone else's opinion on the subject so we can reach a consensus. Cerebral726 (talk) 19:07, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

As I said in my edit summary, the purpose of the headnote is to help readers determine quickly whether they've arrived at the right page. In my (very extensive, sadly) experience discussing Gage with all kinds of people, I can say with confidence that laymen think of Gage (whom they remember from Psychology 101) as "that guy who had the thing go through his head", not "that guy with a brain injury". Obviously, after a moment's thought one realizes that they're probably the same person, but the point is to use a description most people will recognize immediately without having to think about it.
Notice that the WP:SHORTDESC, which serves a different purpose, is appropriately American brain injury survivor (1823–1860). EEng 20:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
As a fan of the article: the current note could be more succinct, but the proposed one isn't ideal to me. When I hear "brain injury", I don't think "iron bar through head", I think car stagecoach crash or a bad fall or something else not involving a hole in the skull. I'm not sure, but maybe "head trauma" sounds better? It seems tough to come up with a more descriptive short phrase that isn't somewhat crass. Matma Rex talk 21:20, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
I agree with EEng that this page is about a person who had something very distinctive happen to him, as opposed to being about a patient who went through a particular medical experience. So "the man who survived an iron bar passing through his head" matches with the page contents just fine for me, and the alternatives that have been suggested seem inferior to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
I agree that a brief description of the incident is more distinctive, and therefore better as a distinguisher, than "head injury survivor". But "the man who survived an iron bar passing through his head" does seem a bit long. We could possibly shorten it a little, to "the survivor of an iron bar through the head". —David Eppstein (talk) 21:54, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't feel too strongly, as long as we retain the key ideas of bar-through-head. However, I can't help pointing out that DE's suggestion just above cuts a mere 2 words from the current wording, but at the same time is distinctly less vivid and direct -- kind of medical sounding [12]. EEng 06:23, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

It's merely a hatnote. Its job should be to let readers figure out quickly whether they are in the right place and if not to redirect them. Brevity helps. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:05, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
Like I said, I don't feel strongly as long as bar-through-head is in there. EEng 09:15, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
I am fine with "the survivor of an iron bar through the head" as well. Cerebral726 (talk) 12:52, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
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