ABSTRACT
Phineas Gage is both a medical curiosity and a famous victim of brain injury, possibly the most famous. Over the years his symptoms have been interpreted in strikingly different ways: for and against Gall’s doctrine of localisation, as negative evidence in the aphasia controversy, as resembling the changes produced in monkeys by ablation of the frontal lobes, as indications for frontal brain surgery, and as contributing to the development of psychosurgery. It is the paucity of data about Gage which so allows his case to be used to support these various “pet theories”. Here I present as full an account of his case as possible and outline the main uses to which it has been put before concluding that it supports very few neuropsychological generalisations.
