Phineas Gage
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Komaroff, Anthony. Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. A big medical reference book for ordinary readers, this has some nice illustrated explanations of how the brain works, plus a ton of other easily understood medical information.
Macmillan, Malcolm. An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. Everything you could want to know about Phineas Gage from the world's leading authority on the case. The book also contains copies of the original medical papers by John Martyn Harlow and Henry Jacob Bigelow, plus newspaper stories from the period.
The "best place" on the Web for more information on Phineas Gage or anything else to do with brain science is "Neuroscience for Kids" (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html), the brainchild of Eric Chudler, a neuroscience researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Chudler set up the site to provide kids with access to the latest news and information on brain science. This is a truly kid-friendly yet highly useful Web site. It even describes simple neurological experiments you can perform—for example, there's one on "handedness"—that don't involve brain surgery. It's also a great source of material and suggestions for science teachers.
Dr. Macmillan also maintains a Phineas Gage page at Deakin University in Australia at www.hbs.deakin.edu.au/gagepage/pgage.htm.
The author of this book has pretty well included everything he knows about Phineas Gage but is always interested in hearing about new developments. You can send him an e-mail message at jfleischman@ascb.org.
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Index
Note: Page numbers in italics refer to photographs or illustrations.
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