Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Our personalities are deeply ingrained within us. We all have
Speaker 1: certain traits and quirks that we can't change no matter
Speaker 1: how hard we try. But what exactly is it that
Speaker 1: makes you you? Modern science has some ideas, and it's
Speaker 1: all thanks to a nineteenth century railroad worker named Phineas.
Speaker 1: On September thirteenth of eighteen forty eight, Phineas was working
Speaker 1: at a construction yard outside cab Dish, Vermont. He was
Speaker 1: regarded as his company's best foreman. He had a steady
Speaker 1: mind and a good business sense, and everyone on the
Speaker 1: crew respected him. The job that day was supposed to
Speaker 1: be simple too. They were clearing rocks to make way
Speaker 1: for the new Rutland and Burlington Railroad. So once the
Speaker 1: crew had drilled a hole into the rocky ground, Phineas
Speaker 1: filled it with explosives and then he picked up a
Speaker 1: long iron tamping rod and used it to pack sand
Speaker 1: into the hole. But while he was doing so, the
Speaker 1: iron rod gave off a spark, and suddenly the explosives detonated,
Speaker 1: blasting the rod out of Phineas's hand and threw his
Speaker 1: left cheekbone. The rod tore through his brain, out the
Speaker 1: top of his skull, and landed on the ground eighty
Speaker 1: feet behind him. Phineas was knocked onto his back with
Speaker 1: a massive hole through his head, but as the smoke cleared,
Speaker 1: Phineas sat up. Not only was he alive, but he
Speaker 1: was still conscious. He stood up calmly, walked over to
Speaker 1: an ox cart and asked his co workers to give
Speaker 1: him a ride to town to see a doctor. Phineas
Speaker 1: was taken to a young physician named doctor John Harlowe,
Speaker 1: who was stunned that his patient was even able to speak.
Speaker 1: He told the doctor exactly what had happened to him,
Speaker 1: and he could even recall the names of the people
Speaker 1: who had been there with him. But Phineas told doctor
Speaker 1: Harlowe not to bother bringing any of his coworkers in
Speaker 1: to visit him. He was sure that he'd be back
Speaker 1: to work in a day. Or two, and amazingly, Phineas
Speaker 1: did make a full recovery, but he never went back
Speaker 1: to work at the railroad company. The accident had changed
Speaker 1: his personality so dramatically his old employers refused to hire
Speaker 1: him back. Once he was a responsible, motivated young foreman
Speaker 1: with a bright career ahead of him, he was now
Speaker 1: a rude, moody, and impatient man. He swore constantly, had
Speaker 1: no impulse control and didn't seem to care about anyone
Speaker 1: but himself. In the words of his friends, he was
Speaker 1: no longer who he used to be. Unable to hold
Speaker 1: down a steady job, Phineas ended up joining Arnham's circus
Speaker 1: as a curiosity. After that, he worked as a stable
Speaker 1: hand and a coach driver for a while, but about
Speaker 1: a decade after his accident, he developed epilepsy and his
Speaker 1: health went downhill quickly. He moved back in with his
Speaker 1: mother in San Francisco, and in eighteen sixty he died
Speaker 1: after a series of seizures. But that was just the
Speaker 1: beginning of his story. Seven years later, Phineas's body was
Speaker 1: exhumed and doctor Harlowe, the man who had treated him
Speaker 1: after his accident, wrote the first detailed medical report on
Speaker 1: his case. He observed that the damage to Phineas's frontal
Speaker 1: lobe had caused major personality changes, but only a minor
Speaker 1: impact on his intellect. At a time when scientists knew
Speaker 1: next to nothing about the human brain, this was a
Speaker 1: major turning point in research. Phineas's injury helped early neurologists
Speaker 1: learn about the brain structure and the frontal lobe's role
Speaker 1: in behavior. His skull was donated to the Harvard School
Speaker 1: of Medicine, where it is still on exhibit today. In
Speaker 1: the last century and a half, it's been studied again
Speaker 1: and again by new generations of scientists trying to understand
Speaker 1: exactly what happened to the man and how to help
Speaker 1: patients with similar brain injuries. The human brain is still
Speaker 1: a source of mystery, but thanks to Phineas Gage, we're
Speaker 1: all a little closer to understanding why we are who
Speaker 1: we are. Have you ever found yourself wondering why it
Speaker 1: is so hard to see when driving at night? I
Speaker 1: know I have. The darkness isn't the problem. It's the
Speaker 1: lights from the other cars. They're so bright that having
Speaker 1: someone behind you or in front of you can be
Speaker 1: utterly blinding. For a technology that's only supposed to help
Speaker 1: protect us, it really seems like it's becoming an annoyance
Speaker 1: for many drivers. So how did we get here? While
Speaker 1: the path of the car headlamped through history is a
Speaker 1: straightforward one, but its history gives us some sense of
Speaker 1: where it might be going as well, nothing changed the
Speaker 1: landscape of our cities quite like the automobile. What started
Speaker 1: as a self propelled carriage soon became a faster and
Speaker 1: more efficient mode of transportation than anything pulled by a horse.
Speaker 1: But you can imagine that the early designers of cars
Speaker 1: were faced with a number of problems right from the start.
Speaker 1: For instance, what happens when you drive at night? You see,
Speaker 1: when a horse is pulling your carriage, you have a
Speaker 1: certain amount of protection from dangerous roads. Under normal circumstances,
Speaker 1: a horse won't lead you straight off a cliff into
Speaker 1: the darkness. Even if the light from your lantern doesn't
Speaker 1: go very far. The animal's instinct of self preservation winds
Speaker 1: up protecting the vehicle itself. Meanwhile, an automobile has no
Speaker 1: such protection. So early on engineers work to design a
Speaker 1: way for cars to see in the darkness. The first
Speaker 1: headlights would be invented in the eighteen eighties. They were
Speaker 1: essentially gas lamps mounted to the hood of the car.
Speaker 1: The cast ambient lights in front of the vehicle, and
Speaker 1: it was far from the powerful beams we have today,
Speaker 1: but at least they were resistant to wind and rain.
Speaker 1: The first electric headlamps came in eighteen ninety eight, courtesy
Speaker 1: of the Electric Vehicle Company of Hartford, Connecticut. These were
Speaker 1: actually a step back in effectiveness from the gas lamps,
Speaker 1: though not because electricity was a bad choice, but because
Speaker 1: the batteries were exhausted very quickly. There would be steady
Speaker 1: attempts to improve the electric headlights in nineteen oh eight
Speaker 1: and nineteen twelve until a new standard finally took over.
Speaker 1: By nineteen forty, all US cars were required to have
Speaker 1: sealed beam headlamps. Gone were the round bulbs protruding from
Speaker 1: the front of a car. From then on, every headlight
Speaker 1: would be in set into the front of the car
Speaker 1: in a square housing. In the nineteen sixties and seventies,
Speaker 1: the electric lights were bolstered with halogen gas to strengthen
Speaker 1: the beam and make it last longer, and in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties manufact replaced halogen lamps with xenon gas to
Speaker 1: brighten the beams even further. Now, you may have noticed
Speaker 1: a pattern throughout history. Automobile manufacturers design a lamp, it
Speaker 1: has a shortcoming. We introduce a new design, it becomes
Speaker 1: brighter and more reliable. Now, while this sounds like a
Speaker 1: pattern that can only lead to improvements, you already know
Speaker 1: where I'm going with this. A halogen ball produces about
Speaker 1: one thousand llumens of light. In the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: cars started introducing LED headlights, which were about four times stronger,
Speaker 1: and after market headlamps can go as high as ten
Speaker 1: thousand lumens. Now, aftermarket headlamps are generally discouraged, but it's
Speaker 1: difficult to fully police what someone does with their own
Speaker 1: vehicle at home, and once it's on the road, the
Speaker 1: problem has already manifested itself. Most cars today need to
Speaker 1: pass safety checks before they hit the road. Then brighter
Speaker 1: headlights can only be a good thing because these standards
Speaker 1: are designed with the driver's visibility in mind, not the
Speaker 1: other drivers on the road, and that is a problem
Speaker 1: that might require more complex solutions than car companies are
Speaker 1: willing to think about. Europe has addressed this problem by
Speaker 1: pursuing adaptive brightness, or beams that adjust their intensity based
Speaker 1: on the proximity of other cars. But as inspiring as
Speaker 1: this sort of development is, it will take a long
Speaker 1: time to see a mass scale. Cars are long term purchases.
Speaker 1: After all, the vehicles on the road today are not
Speaker 1: all brand new off the production line from yesterday. There's
Speaker 1: a lot to be said about our impulses toward light.
Speaker 1: Technology and progress make the world feel safer, less cloaked
Speaker 1: in shadow and mystery. But if we aren't conscious of
Speaker 1: how our progress affects the world around us, we run
Speaker 1: the risk of causing more harm than safety. As any
Speaker 1: moth can tell you, a light in the dark may
Speaker 1: be a beautiful thing, but it isn't always that's safe.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious,