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Phineas Gage

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Title: Phineas Gage                                                                      

Author: John Flieschman

Genre: Nonfiction

        In the early 1800’s a young Vermont railroad worker named Phineas Gage was in a terrifying accident.  Phineas was a foreman, his crew worked with black powder and tamping irons.  Despite having a serious brain injury, Phineas made a miraculous recovery, but he wouldn’t be the same man.  Because of his story, it led to learning more about the brain.

            The theme of this story was about luck.  The author thinks that Phineas Gage was lucky however, he really wasn’t either lucky or unlucky.  He was lucky because he lived another 11 years.  He was unlucky because, a huge rod went through his head.  So in the end Phineas was a little bit of both lucky and unlucky.   But luck is how you look at it.

            I though this book was actually a pretty good book.  I liked when they told us about Phineas, like how his life was after the accident.  My favorite part of this book was probably where Phineas was roaming the world.  What I didn’t like about the book, was all the medical terminology about the brain, it was very confusing when they talked about that.  If I had to rate this book it would be a 4.0.  The reason I rated it that is because it’s good for learning about the brain, and it was very descriptive.  I recommend this book to Doctors who are learning about the brain.