I cannot join in endorsing Antonio Damasio’s book “Descartes’ Error”, which is “complete” (as you say) only in the sense of being complete fiction in its treatment of Gage. Fantasy elements include “Yankee Doodle” Gage “dancing his tapshoes over ties and tracks” (Gage’s work came well before tracklaying); females warned clear of Gage (there’s no indication of this); the drinking, brawling wastrel Gage (in fact Gage supported himself all his life at hard, honest work); and Gage as his physician’s “life-consuming interest” (Dr. Harlow casually lost touch with Gage soon after the accident, and after his 1868 paper never wrote about Gage again). And through 15 years’ reprintings, Damasio still dates Gage’s death incorrectly!

Apparently reasoning that Gage must have displayed symptoms similar those those seen in modern frontal-lobe patients, Damasio presents such symptoms as if they were *fact* about Gage (which they emphatically are not) then uses Gage to elucidate the behavior of modern patients — who were the basis for his description of Gage in the first place! Thus we have what Descartes might have called Damasio’s Error: *raisonnement circulaire.*

Damasio’s theories may have merit, but he really ought to stop offering fiction about Gage as evidence for them.

The Gage daguerreotype was identified because someone “just happened to remember” something. Malcolm Macmillan and I, who have been researching Gage for years, hope lighting can strike again. Without your knowing, you may already have important information on Phineas, or if you are located in any of the places mentioned below, you could help look for information. And it’s important, because a better understanding of Gage could improve treatments for persons with head injuries today.

Below is a summary of answers we are looking for. Many relate not to Gage himself, but rather people he met or places he’d been. Information might be in letters and diaries; medical and business records; town, police and court files; local newspapers; or in the archives of churches, hospitals and literary, professional, historical and genealogical societies. We especially hope organizations will search their one-of-a-kind materials not published in book form. FOR MORE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, and why answers might help us better understand Phineas, please visit http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/PgQuestn.php .

IN CHILE (1852-60): We want to know about Drs. William and Henry Trevitt, Masonic lodges, Methodist churches, and English-language newspapers, schools and businesses. Do you know anyone who can help with such things?

IN NEW ENGLAND (1848-54): Can you find newspaper or diary accounts of Phineas’ accident, of his travels exhibiting himself and his “iron,” or of his reported preaching at Methodist revivals in Sterling, Mass.? In Concord, NH records of the Abbot-Downing coachworks could identify “three enterprising New Englanders” who may have set up the coach line for which Phineas drove in Chile; in Hanover you might discover Phineas’ duties at Currier’s Inn, or a Dartmouth professor who met him; and somewhere in Wilton may be the papers of Henry Trevitt.

IN CALIFORNIA (1860- ): Where is the missing undertaker’s ledger showing where Gage died? What can you discover about Dr. William Jackson Wentworth (Alameda Co.) or the papers of Joseph Stalder (d.1931)? Are you descended from Phineas’s nieces/nephew Hannah, Delia, Mary, Alice, or Frank B. Shattuck? Can we learn more about Frank at the School for the Deaf?

IN OHIO (1860- ): Can you find anything about Henry Trevitt’s time at Starling Medical College in Columbus, Prof. J.W. Hamilton, or William Trevitt’s papers?

ANYWHERE: If you are related to the Cowdrey, Davis, Ames, or Kimball families, are you also related to Phineas’ doctor, John Martyn Harlow? Do you know of ship passenger lists (Boston, New York, Chile, Panama, S.F.) that might show Gage family movements? Do you have Gold Rush ancestors who stopped in Valparaiso, Chile? And of course, letters mentioning Gage could have gone anywhere.

There are more clues in Stillwater and Northfield, MN; Santa Clara, San Rafael, and S.F., CA; Cavendish, Castleton, Woodstock, and Burlington, VT; Lebanon, Enfield and Wilton, NH; Albany, NY, Buda, IL, the National Library of Medicine, and other places. At http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/PgQuestn.php are details on how you can help by following such clues. Your help or inquiries to malcolm.macmillan@unimelb.edu.au will be very much appreciated. (Please use email instead of posting a reply here.)

We would be pleased to assist teachers (in New England, S.F., even Chile?) in creating a class project involving students’ search for family papers or local lore about Gage.

P.S. You can read Jack and Beverly Wilgus’ remarkable story of how they came to realize Phineas Gage had been staring at them from their living room wall (so to speak) right here: http://brightbytes.com/phineasgage/