07/06/2024
As a hobby I like to do photo restoration. Today my subject is Phineas Gage who suffered brain injury from a tamping iron (that he is holding in the photo) that blasted through his skull and brain, yet was able to resume a mostly normal life, albeit with some personality changes. Two daguerreotype portraits by unknown photographers of Gage, were identified in 2009 and this one in 2010 are the only known likenesses of the man. Perhaps the family of Gage might like my colorized version if I could find them, of which I would happily provide them at no cost.
The photo on the left was taken from his Wikipedia page. I used some standard image processing in Photoshop and then applied one of the new "Neural" filters to colorize the photo. Back in the '80s when I worked at what was called Oceanside Photographic Center we did photo restoration the old fashioned way by photographing sometimes nearly completely destroyed photos that we would have to reassemble like a jigsaw puzzle and then we had an artist who would repair scratches, tears, and often missing elements of the image. And if the customer wanted, our artist would also colorize the image by hand. Now with digital tools this is all much easier.
Now a little about Gage:
Phineas Gage was a railroad worker in the 19th century who survived a severe brain injury that dramatically changed our understanding of the brain. In 1848, an accident caused an iron rod to pierce through his skull, damaging his frontal lobe.
Amazingly, Phineas survived the incident and recovered physically, but his personality underwent significant changes.
Before the accident, he was known as a hardworking and responsible man. Afterward, it was reported that he became impulsive and erratic (but some accounts show that his reported erratic behavior was unsubstantiated and greatly exaggerated), showing us that specific brain areas are responsible for different aspects of personality and behavior.
Phineas Gage's case was one of the first to provide evidence linking brain injury to changes in personality, paving the way for modern neuroscience. His story continues to inspire and educate, reminding us of the incredible complexities of the human brain.
Learn more about Gage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
https://www.uakron.edu/gage/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1114479/
