Head cast of Phineas Gage made during his life, 1850

Head cast of Phineas Gage made during his life, 1850

Cast made of the head of Phineas Gage during his examination at Harvard Medical School in 1850

Gage, Phineas

casting (process)

Frontal Lobe

Brain Injuries

Bigelow, Henry Jacob, 1818-1890

Plaster head cast of a man with significant head trauma. Cast is attached to plaster pedestal base and the entire work is painted white.

The plaster head cast made of Phineas Gage by Henry Jacob Bigelow at Harvard Medical School in 1850 to substantiate the specifics of Gage's neurotrauma.

Bigelow, Henry Jacob, 1818-1890

Bigelow, Henry Jacob, 1818-1890

January 1850

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Warren Anatomical Museum

object

1 head cast

casts (sculpture)

physical object

WAM 00950

Phineas Gage sustained his traumatic brain injury on September 13, 1848 in Cavendish, Vermont. In January 1850 Professor of Surgery Henry Jacob Bigelow brought Gage to Boston and Harvard Medical School for examination and took this cast of the his head. Bigelow published his examination of Gage and the casting of his head in the July 1850 American Journal of the Medical Sciences. According to Bigelow, the head cast was on display adjacent to Gage's tamping iron in the Warren Anatomical Museum in July 1850. The cast was officially donated by Bigelow to the Museum in 1856.