Bad Ends · DETOUR · Longwood Medical Area
The surgeon from the ether operation left Harvard his museum and his skeleton. The star exhibit is a skull with a hole in it.
John Collins Warren, the surgeon from the first public ether operation, gave Harvard his teaching collection in 1847 and later left it his own skeleton. Its most famous object arrived in 1868: the skull of Phineas Gage, with the iron bar that went through it in 1848. He lived, and who he became afterward is still argued over. The weekend gallery upstairs shows his case. Check the hours first.
This is a detour on Bad Ends.
The plate
Collected on site
10 Shattuck Street, Boston (public entrance 695 Huntington Avenue)
Directions
The British Psychological Society's research digest calls the standard Gage story 'one of psychology's foundation myths.'
More footnotes on the story card, in the app.
Argue about it
Did the iron make Phineas Gage a different man for good?
Both sides, with their sources, are on the story card in the app.
In these collections: Legends Busted
Sources (9)
- Warren Anatomical Museum CollectionCenter for the History of Medicine, Countway Library, Harvard · accessed 2026-10-11
- Beyond Phineas GageHarvard Gazette · 2001-11
- Phineas GageWikipedia · accessed 2026-10-11
- Neuroscience still haunted by Phineas GageChristian Jarrett, BPS Research Digest · 2012-05-23
- Public Hours for Center for the History of Medicine ExhibitsCountway Library (Dominic Hall) · 2025-04-07
- Public Hours for Center for the History of Medicine Exhibits (re-read)Countway Library, Harvard Medical School (Dominic Hall) · 2025-04-07
- Memories of Countway LibraryHarvard Medicine magazine · 2025-12
- Skull of Phineas Gage and the Rod That Passed Through ItRoadside America · accessed 2026-10-11
- The Death of Learning - A Visit To One Of The US's Last Surviving Anatomy And Pathology MuseumsFuneral Wise · 2018-04-23