On 13 September 1848, Phineas P. Gauge was abruptly changed for the rest of his life when an iron tamping rod was accidentally shot through his head. Inconceivably he lived, having the only repercussions of never being "like the old Gauge" again. For the next eleven years he served as a fantastic addition to a travelling circus where he and his befriended metal rod would witness to such a bizarre biological phenomenon: having a 13lbs metal spike enter and exit through a living human's cranium, leaving him strangely okay.