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Phineas Gage

Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life—effects sufficiently profound that friends saw him (for a time at least) as "no longer Gage".

Long known as the "American Crowbar Case"—once termed "the case which more than all others is - to excite our wonder, impair the value of prognosis, and even to subvert our - doctrines"—Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, - debate on cerebral -, and was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in -, and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.

Gage is a fixture in the curricula of neurology, psychology, and neuroscience, one of "the great medical curiosities of all time" and "a living part of the medical folklore" frequently mentioned in books and scientific papers; he even has a minor place in popular culture. Despite this celebrity, the body of established fact about Gage and what he was like (whether before or after his injury) is small, which has allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have"—Gage acting as a "Rorschach inkblot" in which proponents of various conflicting theories of the brain all saw support for their views. Historically, published accounts of Gage (including scientific ones) have almost always severely exaggerated and distorted his behavioral changes, frequently contradicting the known facts.

A report of Gage's physical and mental condition shortly before his death implies that his most serious mental changes were temporary, so that in later life he was far more functional, and socially far better adapted, than in the years immediately following his accident. A social recovery hypothesis suggests that his work as a stagecoach driver in Chile fostered this recovery by providing daily structure that allowed him to regain lost social and personal skills.

Background

Gage was the first of five children born to Jesse Eaton Gage and Hannah Trussell (Swetland) Gage of Grafton County, New Hampshire. Little is known about his upbringing and education beyond that he was literate.

Physician John Martyn Harlow, who knew Gage before his accident, described him as "a perfectly healthy, strong and active young man, twenty-five years of age, nervo-bilious temperament, five feet six inches [5 ft] in height, average weight one hundred and fifty pounds [150 lb], possessing an iron will as well as an iron frame; muscular system unusually well developed—having had scarcely a day's illness from his childhood to the date of [his] injury". (In the pseudoscience of phrenology, which was then just ending its vogue, nervo-bilious denoted an unusual combination of "excitable and active mental powers" with "energy and strength [of] mind and body [making] possible the endurance of great mental and physical labor".)

Gage may have first worked with explosives on farms as a youth, or in nearby mines and quarries. In July 1848 he was employed on construction of the Hudson River Railroad near Cortlandt Town, New York, and by September he was a blasting foreman (possibly an independent contractor) on railway construction projects. His employers' "most efficient and capable foreman ... a shrewd, smart business man, very energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of operation", he had even commissioned a custom-made tamping iron—a large iron rod—for use in setting explosive charges.

Accident

On September 13, 1848, Gage was - for the - south of the village of -. Setting a blast entailed boring a hole deep into an - of rock; adding - and a fuse; then using the tamping iron to pack ("tamp") sand, clay, or other inert material into the hole above the powder in order to contain the blast's energy and direct it into surrounding rock.

As Gage was doing this around 4:30 p.m., his attention was attracted by his men working behind him. Looking over his right shoulder, and - bringing his head into line with the blast hole and tamping iron, Gage opened his mouth to speak; in that same instant the tamping iron sparked against the rock and (possibly because the sand had been omitted) the powder exploded. Rocketed from the hole, the tamping iron—1+1/4 inch in diameter, 3 ft long, and weighing 13+1/4 lb—entered the left side of Gage's face in an upward direction, just forward of the angle of the lower jaw. Continuing upward outside the upper jaw and possibly fracturing the cheekbone, it passed behind the left eye, through the left side of the brain, then completely out the top of the skull through the frontal bone.

Despite 19th-century references to Gage as the "American Crowbar Case", his tamping iron did not have the bend or claw - with the term crowbar; rather, it was simply a pointed cylinder something like a javelin, round and fairly smooth:

"The end which entered [Gage's cheek] first is pointed; the taper being [eleven inches (28 cm) long, ending in a 1⁄4-inch (6 mm) point]... - to which the patient perhaps owes his life. The iron is unlike any other, and was made by a - [sic] blacksmith to please the fancy of the owner."

The tamping iron landed point-first some 80 ft away, "smeared with blood and brain".

Gage was thrown onto his back and gave some brief convulsions of the arms and legs, but spoke within a few minutes, walked with little assistance, and sat upright in an oxcart for the 3/4 mi ride to his lodgings in town. (A possibly apocryphal contemporary newspaper report claimed that Gage, while en route, made an entry in his time-book – the record of his crew's hours and wages.) About 30 minutes after the accident, physician Edward H. Williams found Gage sitting in a chair outside the hotel and was greeted with "one of the great understatements of medical history":

"When I drove up he said, 'Doctor, here is business enough for you.' I first noticed the wound upon the head before I alighted from my carriage, the pulsations of the brain being very distinct. The top of the head appeared somewhat like an inverted funnel, as if some wedge-shaped body had passed from below upward. Mr. Gage, during the time I was examining this wound, was relating the manner in which he was injured to the bystanders. I did not believe Mr. Gage's statement at that time, but thought he was deceived. Mr. Gage persisted in saying that the bar went through his head. Mr. G. got up and vomited; the effort of vomiting pressed out about half a teacupful of the brain [through the exit hole at the top of the skull], which fell upon the floor."

Harlow took charge of the case around 6 p.m.:

"You will excuse me for remarking here, that the picture presented was, to one unaccustomed to military surgery, truly terrific; but the patient bore his sufferings with the most heroic firmness. He recognized me at once, and said he hoped he was not much hurt. He seemed to be perfectly conscious, but was getting exhausted from the hemorrhage. His person, and the bed on which he was laid, were literally one gore of blood."

Gage was also swallowing blood, which he regurgitated every 15 or 20 minutes.

Treatment and convalescence

With Williams' assistance Harlow shaved the scalp around the region of the tamping iron's exit, then removed coagulated blood, small bone fragments, and "an ounce or more" of protruding brain. After probing for foreign bodies and replacing two large detached pieces of bone, Harlow closed the wound with adhesive straps, leaving it partially open for drainage; the entrance wound in the cheek was bandaged only loosely, for the same reason. A wet compress was applied, then a nightcap, then further bandaging to secure these dressings. Harlow also dressed Gage's hands and forearms (which along with his face had been deeply burned) and ordered that Gage's head be kept elevated.

Late that evening Harlow noted, "Mind clear. Constant agitation of his legs, being alternately retracted and extended... Says he 'does not care to see his friends, as he shall be at work in a few days.

Despite his own optimism, Gage's convalescence was long, difficult, and uneven. Though recognizing his mother and uncle—summoned from Lebanon, New Hampshire, 30 miles (50km) away— on the morning after the accident, on the second day, he "lost control of his mind, and became decidedly delirious". By the fourth day, he was again "rational ... knows his friends", and after a week's further improvement Harlow entertained, for the first time, the thought "that it was possible for Gage to recover ... This improvement, however, was of short duration."

Beginning 12 days after the accident, Gage was semi-comatose, "seldom speaking unless spoken to, and then answering only in monosyllables", and on the 13th day Harlow noted, "Failing strength ... coma deepened; the globe of the left eye became more protuberant, with ["fungus"—deteriorated, infected tissue] pushing out rapidly from the internal canthus [as well as] from the wounded brain, and coming out at the top of the head." By the 14th day, "the exhalations from the mouth and head [are] horribly fetid. Comatose, but will answer in monosyllables if aroused. Will not take nourishment unless strongly urged. The friends and attendants are in hourly expectancy of his death, and have his coffin and clothes in readiness. One of the attendants implored me not to do anything more for him, as it would only prolong his sufferings—that if I would only keep away and let him alone, he would die."

Galvanized to action, Harlow "cut off the fungi which were sprouting out from the top of the brain and filling the opening, and made free application of caustic [i.e. crystalline silver nitrate] to them. With a scalpel I laid open the [frontalis muscle, from the exit wound down to the top of the nose] and immediately there were discharged eight ounces [250 ml] of ill-conditioned pus, with blood, and excessively fetid." ("Gage was lucky to encounter Dr. Harlow when he did", writes Barker. "Few doctors in 1848 would have had the experience with cerebral abscess with which Harlow left [Jefferson Medical College] and which probably saved Gage's life." See § Factors favoring Gage's survival, below.)

On the 24th day, Gage "succeeded in raising himself up, and took one step to his chair". One month later, he was walking "up and down stairs, and about the house, into the piazza", and while Harlow was absent for a week Gage was "in the street every day except Sunday", his desire to return to his family in New Hampshire being "uncontrollable by his friends ... he went without an overcoat and with thin boots; got wet feet and a chill". He soon developed a fever, but by mid-November was "feeling better in every respect [and] walking about the house again". Harlow's prognosis at this point: Gage "appears to be in a way of recovering, if he can be controlled".

By November 25 (10 weeks after his injury), Gage was strong enough to return to his parents' home in Lebanon, New Hampshire, traveling there in a "close carriage" (an enclosed conveyance of the kind used for transporting the insane). Though "quite feeble and thin ... weak and childish" on arriving, by late December he was "riding out, improving both mentally and physically", and by the following February he was "able to do a little work about the horses and barn, feeding the cattle etc. [and] as the time for ploughing came [i.e. about May or June] he was able to do half a day's work after that and bore it well". In August his mother told an inquiring physician that his memory seemed somewhat impaired, though slightly enough that a stranger would not notice.

Injuries
In April 1849, Gage returned to Cavendish and visited Harlow, who noted at that time loss of vision, and ptosis, of the left eye, a large scar on the forehead (from Harlow's draining of the abscess) and

"upon the top of the head ... a quadrangular fragment of bone... raised and quite prominent. Behind this is a deep depression, two inches by one and one-half inches [5by 4cm] wide, beneath which the pulsations of the brain can be perceived. Partial paralysis of the left side of the face. His physical health is good, and I am inclined to say he has recovered. Has no pain in head, but says it has a queer feeling which he is not able to describe."

Gage's rearmost left upper molar, adjacent to the point of entry through the cheek, was also lost. Though a year later some weakness remained, Harlow wrote that "physically, the recovery was quite complete during the four years immediately succeeding the injury".

New England and New York (1849–1852)

In November 1849 Henry Jacob Bigelow, the Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, brought Gage to Boston for several weeks and, after satisfying himself that the tamping iron had actually passed through Gage's head, presented him to a meeting of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement and (possibly) to the medical school class.

Unable to reclaim his railroad job Gage was for a time "a kind of living museum exhibit" at Barnum's American Museum in New York City. (This was not the later Barnum's circus; there is no evidence Gage ever exhibited with a troupe or circus, or on a fairground.) Advertisements have also been found for public appearances by Gage—which he may have arranged and promoted himself—in New Hampshire and Vermont, supporting Harlow's statement that Gage made public appearances in "most of the larger New England towns". (Years later Bigelow wrote that Gage had been "a shrewd and intelligent man and quite disposed to do anything of that sort to turn an honest penny", but gave up such efforts because "[that] sort of thing has not much interest for the general public".) For about 18 months, he worked for the owner of a stable and coach service in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Chile and California (1852–1860)
In August 1852, Gage was invited to Chile to work as a long-distance stagecoach driver there, "caring for horses, and often driving a coach heavily laden and drawn by six horses" on the Valparaíso–Santiago route. After his health began to fail in mid-1859, he left Chile for San Francisco, arriving (in his mother's words) "in a feeble condition, having failed very much since he left New Hampshire ... Had many ill turns while in Valparaiso, especially during the last year, and suffered much from hardship and exposure." In San Francisco he recovered under the care of his mother and sister, who had relocated there from New Hampshire around the time he went to Chile. Then, "anxious to work", he found employment with a farmer in Santa Clara.

In February 1860, Gage began to have epileptic seizures. He lost his job, and (wrote Harlow) as the seizures increased in frequency and severity he "continued to work in various places [though he] could not do much".

Death and exhumation

On May 18, 1860, Gage "left Santa Clara and went home to his mother. At 5 o'clock, A.M., on the 20th, he had a severe -. The family physician was called in, and bled him. The - were repeated frequently during the - day and night," and he died in status -, in or near San Francisco, late on May 21, 1860. He was buried in San Francisco's Lone Mountain Cemetery.

In 1866, Harlow (who had "lost all trace of [Gage], and had well nigh abandoned all - of ever hearing from him again") somehow learned that Gage had died in California, and made contact with his family there. At Harlow's request the family had Gage's skull exhumed, then personally delivered it to Harlow, who was by then a prominent physician, - and civic leader in Woburn, Massachusetts.

About a year after the accident, Gage had given his tamping iron to Harvard Medical School's Warren Anatomical Museum, but he later reclaimed it and made what he called "my iron bar" his "constant companion during the remainder of his life"; now it too was delivered by Gage's family to Harlow. (Though some accounts assert that Gage's iron had been buried with him, there is no evidence for this.) After studying them for a triumphal 1868 retrospective paper on Gage Harlow redeposited the iron—this time with the skull—in the Warren Museum, where they remain on display today.

The tamping iron bears the following inscription, commissioned by Bigelow in conjunction with the iron's original deposit in the Museum (though the date given for the accident is one day off):

"This is the bar that was shot through the head of Mr Phinehas$12 1/2$ P. Gage at Cavendish Vermont Sept 14,$[sic]$ 1848. He fully recovered from the injury & deposited this bar in the Museum of the Medical College of Harvard University.Phinehas P. GageLebanon Grafton Cy N–HJan 6 1850"

The date Jan 6 1850 falls within the period during which Gage was in Boston under Bigelow's observation.

In 1940 Gage's headless remains were moved to Cypress Lawn Memorial Park as part of a mandated relocation of San Francisco's cemeteries to outside city limits.

Mental changes and brain damage

Gage may have been the first case to suggest the brain's role in determining personality and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific personality changes, but the nature, extent, and duration of these changes have been difficult to establish. Only a handful of sources give direct information on what Gage was like (either before or after the accident), the mental changes published after his death were much more dramatic than anything reported while he was alive, and few sources are explicit about the periods of Gage's life to which their various descriptions of him (which vary widely in their implied level of functional impairment) are meant to apply.

Early observations (1849–1852)
Harlow ("virtually our only source of information" on Gage, according to psychologist Malcolm Macmillan) described the pre-accident Gage as hard-working, responsible, and "a great favorite" with the men in his charge, his employers having regarded him as "the most efficient and capable foreman in their employ"; he also took pains to note that Gage's memory and general intelligence seemed unimpaired after the accident, outside of the delirium exhibited in the first few days. Nonetheless these same employers, after Gage's accident, "considered the change in his mind so marked that they could not give him his place again":

"-"

This description ("now routinely quoted", says Kotowicz) is from Harlow's observations set down soon after the accident, but Harlow—perhaps hesitant to describe his patient negatively while he was still alive—delayed publishing it until 1868, after Gage had died and his family had supplied "what we so much desired to see" (as Harlow termed Gage's skull).

In the interim, Harlow's 1848 report, published just as Gage was emerging from his convalescence, merely hinted at psychological symptoms:

"The mental manifestations of the patient, I reserve to a future communication. I think the case ... is exceedingly interesting to the enlightened physiologist and intellectual philosopher."

But after Bigelow termed Gage "quite recovered in faculties of body and mind" with only "inconsiderable disturbance of function", a rejoinder in the American Phrenological Journal—

"That there was no difference in his mental manifestations after the recovery [is] not true ... he was gross, profane, coarse, and vulgar, to such a degree that his society was intolerable to decent people."

—was apparently based on information anonymously supplied by Harlow. Pointing out that Bigelow gave extensive verbatim quotations from Harlow's 1848 papers, yet omitted Harlow's promise to follow up with details of Gage's "mental manifestations", Barker explains Bigelow's and Harlow's contradictory evaluations (less than a year apart) by differences in their educational backgrounds, in particular their attitudes toward cerebral localization (the idea that different regions of the brain are specialized for different functions) and phrenology (the nineteenth-century pseudoscience that held that talents and personality can be inferred from the shape of a person's skull):

"Harlow's interest in phrenology prepared him to accept the change in [Gage's] character as a significant clue to cerebral function which merited publication. Bigelow had [been taught] that damage to the cerebral hemispheres had no intellectual effect, and he was unwilling to consider Gage's deficit significant ... The use of a single case [including Gage's] to prove opposing views on phrenology was not uncommon."

A reluctance to ascribe a biological basis to "higher mental functions" (functions—such as language, personality, and moral judgment—beyond the merely sensory and motor) may have been a further reason Bigelow discounted the behavioral changes in Gage which Harlow had noted.

Later observations (1858–1859)

In 1860, an American physician who had known Gage in Chile in 1858 and 1859 described him as still "engaged in stage driving [and] in the enjoyment of good health, with no impairment whatever of his mental faculties". Together with the fact that Gage was hired by his employer in advance, in New England, to become part of the new coaching enterprise in Chile, this implies that Gage's most serious mental changes had been temporary, so that the "fitful, irreverent ... capricious and vacillating" Gage described by Harlow immediately after the accident became, over time, far more functional and far better adapted socially.

Macmillan writes that this conclusion is reinforced by the responsibilities and challenges associated with stagecoach work such as that done by Gage in Chile, including the requirement that drivers "be reliable, resourceful, and possess great endurance. But above all, they had to have the kind of personality that enabled them to get on well with their passengers." A day's work for Gage meant "a 13-hour journey over 100 miles [160km] of poor roads, often in times of political instability or frank revolution. All this—in a land to whose language and customs Phineas arrived an utter stranger—militates as much against permanent disinhibition [i.e. an inability to plan and self-regulate] as do the extremely complex sensory-motor and cognitive skills required of a coach driver." (An American visitor wrote: "The departure of the coach was always a great event at Valparaiso—a crowd of ever-astonished Chilenos assembling every day to witness the phenomenon of one man driving six horses.")

Social recovery

Macmillan writes that this contrast—between Gage's early, versus later, post-accident behavior—reflects his "[gradual change] from the commonly portrayed impulsive and uninhibited person into one who made a reasonable 'social recovery, citing persons with similar injuries for whom "someone or something gave enough structure to their lives for them to relearn lost social and personal skills":

"-"

According to contemporary accounts by visitors to Chile, Gage would have had to

"rise early in the morning, prepare himself, and groom, feed, and harness the horses; he had to be at the departure point at a specified time, load the luggage, charge the fares and get the passengers settled; and then had to care for the passengers on the journey, unload their luggage at the destination, and look after the horses. The tasks formed a structure that required control of any impulsiveness he may have had."

En route (Macmillan continues):

"much foresight was required. Drivers had to plan for turns well in advance, and sometimes react quickly to manoeuvre around other coaches, wagons, and birlochos travelling at various speeds... Adaptation had also to be made to the physical condition of the route: although some sections were well-made, others were dangerously steep and very rough."

Thus Gage's stagecoach work—"a highly structured environment in which clear sequences of tasks were required [but within which] contingencies requiring foresight and planning arose daily"—resembles rehabilitation regimens first developed by Soviet neuropsychologist Alexander Luria for the reestablishment of self-regulation in World War II soldiers suffering frontal lobe injuries.

A neurological basis for such recoveries may be found in emerging evidence "that damaged [neural] tracts may re-establish their original connections or build alternative pathways as the brain recovers" from injury. Macmillan adds that if Gage made such a recovery—if he eventually "figured out how to live" (as Fleischman put it) despite his injury—then it "would add to current evidence that rehabilitation can be effective even in difficult and long-standing cases"; and if Gage could achieve such improvement without medical supervision, "what are the limits for those in formal rehabilitation programs?" As author Sam Kean put it, "If even Phineas Gage bounced back—that's a powerful message of hope."

Exaggeration and distortion of mental changes
Macmillan's analysis of scientific and popular accounts of Gage found that they almost always distort and exaggerate his behavioral changes well beyond anything described by anyone who had direct contact with him, concluding that the known facts are "inconsistent with the common view of Gage as a boastful, brawling, foul-mouthed, dishonest useless drifter, unable to hold down a job, who died penniless in an institution". In the words of Barker, "As years passed, the case took on a life of its own, accruing novel additions to Gage's story without any factual basis". Even today (writes Zbigniew Kotowicz) "Most commentators still rely on hearsay and accept what others have said about Gage, namely, that after the accident he became a psychopath"; Grafman has written that "the details of [Gage's] social cognitive impairment have occasionally been inferred or even embellished to suit the enthusiasm of the story teller"; and Goldenberg calls Gage "a (nearly) blank sheet upon which authors can write stories which illustrate their theories and entertain the public".

For example, Harlow's statement that Gage "continued to work in various places; could not do much, changing often, and always finding something that did not suit him in every place he tried" refers only to Gage's final months, after convulsions had set in. But it has been misinterpreted as meaning that Gage never held a regular job after his accident, "was prone to quit in a capricious fit or be let go because of poor discipline", "never returned to a fully independent existence", "spent the rest of his life living miserably off the charity of others and traveling around the country as a sideshow freak", and ("dependent on his family" or "in the custody of his parents") died "in careless dissipation". In fact, after his initial post-recovery months spent traveling and exhibiting, Gage supported himself—at a total of just two different jobs—from early 1851 until just before his death in 1860.

Other behaviors ascribed, by various authors, to the post-accident Gage that are either unsupported by, or in contradiction to, the known facts include the following: • mistreatment of wife and children (though Gage actually had neither);

• inappropriate sexual behavior, promiscuity, or impaired sexuality;

• lack of forethought, concern for the future, or capacity for embarrassment;

• parading his self-misery, and vainglory in showing his wounds;

• "gambling" himself into "emotional and reputational... bankruptcy";

• irresponsibility, untrustworthiness, aggressiveness, violence;

• vagrancy, begging, drifting, drinking;

• lying, brawling, bullying;

• psychopathy, inability to make ethical decisions;

• "[loss of] all respect for social conventions";

• acting like an "idiot" or a "lout";

• living as a "layabout" or a "boorish mess";

• "[alienating] almost everyone who had ever cared about him";

• dying "due to a debauch". None of these behaviors are mentioned by anyone who had met Gage or even his family, and as Kotowicz put it, "Harlow does not report a single act that Gage should have been ashamed of." Gage is "a great story for illustrating the need to go back to original sources", writes Macmillan, most authors having been "content to summarize or paraphrase accounts that are already seriously in error".

Nonetheless (write Daffner and Searl) "the telling of [Gage's] story has increased interest in understanding the enigmatic role that the frontal lobes play in behavior and personality", and Ratiu has said that in teaching about the frontal lobes, an anecdote about Gage is like an "ace [up] your sleeve. It's just like whenever you talk about the French Revolution you talk about the guillotine, because it's so cool." Benderly suggests that instructors use the Gage case to illustrate the importance of critical thinking.

Extent of brain damage

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In addition, Ratiu et al. noted that the hole in the base of the cranium (created as the tamping iron passed through the sphenoidal sinus into the brain) has a diameter about half that of the iron itself; combining this with the hairline fracture beginning behind the exit region and running down the front of the skull, they concluded that the skull "hinged" open as the iron entered from below, then was pulled closed by the resilience of soft tissues once the iron had exited through the top of the head.

Van Horn et al. concluded that damage to Gage's white matter (of which they made detailed estimates) was as or more significant to Gage's mental changes than cerebral cortex (gray matter) damage. Thiebaut de Schotten et al. estimated white-matter damage in Gage and two other case studies ("Tan" and "H.M."), concluding that these patients "suggest that social behavior, language, and memory depend on the coordinated activity of different [brain] regions rather than single areas in the frontal or temporal lobes."

Factors favoring Gage's survival

Harlow saw Gage's survival as demonstrating "the wonderful resources of the system in enduring the shock and in overcoming the effects of so frightful a lesion, and as a beautiful display of the recuperative powers of nature", and listed what he saw as the circumstances favoring it: "1st. The subject was the man for the case. His physique, will, and capacity of endurance, could scarcely be excelled."

For Harlow's description of the pre-accident Gage, see § Background, above.

"2d. The shape of the missile—being pointed, round and comparatively smooth, not leaving behind it prolonged concussion or compression."

Despite its very large diameter and mass (compared to a weapon-fired projectile) the tamping iron's relatively low velocity drastically reduced the energy available to compressive and concussive "shock waves".

Harlow continued: "3d. The point of entrance... [The tamping iron] did little injury until it reached the floor of the cranium, when, at the same time that it did irreparable damage, it [created the] opening in the base of the skull, for drainage, [without which] recovery would have been impossible."

Barker writes that "[Head injuries] from falls, horse kicks, and gunfire, were well known in pre–Civil War America [and] every contemporary course of lectures on surgery described the diagnosis and treatment" of such injuries. But to Gage's benefit, surgeon Joseph Pancoast had performed "his most celebrated operation for head injury before Harlow's medical class, [trepanning] to drain the pus, resulting in temporary recovery. Unfortunately, symptoms recurred and the patient died. At autopsy, reaccumulated pus was found: granulation tissue had blocked the opening in the dura." By keeping the exit wound open, and elevating Gage's head to encourage drainage from the cranium into the sinuses (through the hole made by the tamping iron), Harlow "had not repeated Professor Pancoast's mistake".

Finally, "4th. The portion of the brain traversed was, for several reasons, the best fitted of any part of the cerebral substance to sustain the injury."

Precisely what Harlow's "several reasons" were is unclear, but he was likely referring, at least in part, to the understanding (slowly developing since ancient times) that injuries to the front of the brain are less dangerous than are those to the rear, because the latter frequently interrupt vital functions such as breathing and circulation. For example, surgeon James Earle wrote in 1790 that "a great part of the cerebrum may be taken away without destroying the animal, or even depriving it of its faculties, whereas the cerebellum will scarcely admit the smallest injury, without being followed by mortal symptoms."

Ratiu et al. and Van Horn et al. both concluded that the tamping iron passed left of the superior sagittal sinus and left it intact, both because Harlow does not mention loss of cerebrospinal fluid through the nose, and because otherwise Gage would almost certainly have suffered fatal blood loss or air embolism. Harlow's moderate (in the context of medical practice of the time) use of emetics, purgatives, and (in one instance) bleeding would have "produced dehydration with reduction of intracranial pressure [which] may have favorably influenced the outcome of the case", according to Steegmann.

As to his own role in Gage's survival, Harlow merely averred, "I can only say ... with good old Ambroise Paré, I dressed him, God healed him", but Macmillan calls this self-assessment far too modest. Noting that Harlow had been a "relatively inexperienced local physician ... graduated four and a half years earlier", Macmillan's discussion of Harlow's "skillful and imaginative adaptation [of] conservative and progressive elements from the available therapies to the particular needs posed by Gage's injuries" emphasizes that Harlow "did not apply rigidly what he had learned", for example forgoing an exhaustive search for bone fragments (which risked hemorrhage and further brain injury) and applying caustic to the "fungi" instead of excising them (which risked hemorrhage) or forcing them into the wound (which risked compressing the brain).

Skepticism

- "-"

"A distinguished Professor of Surgery in a distant city", Harlow continued, had even dismissed Gage as a "Yankee invention".

According to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (1869) it was the 1850 report on Gage by Bigelow—Harvard's Professor of Surgery and "a majestic and - figure on the medical scene of those times"—that "finally succeeded in forcing [the case's] authenticity upon the credence of the - as could hardly have been done by any one in whose sagacity and surgical knowledge his confrères had any less confidence". Noting that, "The leading feature of this case is its - This is the sort of accident that happens in the pantomime at the theater, not elsewhere", Bigelow emphasized that though "at first wholly skeptical, I have been personally convinced".

Nonetheless (Bigelow wrote just before Harlow's 1868 presentation of Gage's skull) though "the nature of [Gage's] injury and its reality are now beyond doubt ... Ihave received a letter within a month [purporting] to prove that ... the accident could not have happened."

Standard for other brain injuries

As the reality of Gage's accident and survival gained credence, it became "the standard against which other injuries to the brain were judged", and it has retained that status despite competition from a growing list of other unlikely-sounding brain-injury accidents, including encounters with axes, bolts, low bridges, exploding firearms, a revolver shot to the nose, further tamping irons, and falling Eucalyptus branches. For example, after a miner survived traversal of his skull by a gas pipe 5/8 in in diameter (extracted "not without considerable difficulty and force, owing to a bend in the portion of the rod in his skull"), his physician invoked Gage as the "only case comparable with this, in the amount of brain injury, that I have seen reported".

Often these comparisons carried hints of humor, competitiveness, or both. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, for example, alluded to Gage's astonishing survival by referring to him as "the patient whose cerebral organism had been comparatively so little disturbed by its abrupt and intrusive visitor"; and a Kentucky doctor, reporting a patient's survival of a gunshot through the nose, bragged, "If you Yankees can send a tamping bar through a fellow's brain and not kill him, I guess there are not many can shoot a bullet between a man's mouth and his brains, stopping just short of the medulla oblongata, and not touch either." Similarly, when a lumbermill foreman returned to work soon after a saw cut 3 in into his skull from just between the eyes to behind the top of his head, his surgeon (who had removed from this wound "thirty-two pieces of bone, together with considerable sawdust") termed the case "second to none reported, save the famous tamping-iron case of Dr. Harlow", though apologizing that "I cannot well gratify the desire of my professional brethren to possess [the patient's] skull, until he has no further use for it himself."

As these and other remarkable brain-injury survivals accumulated, the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal pretended to wonder whether the brain has any function at all: "Since the antics of iron bars, gas pipes, and the like skepticism is discomfitted, and dares not utter itself. Brains do not seem to be of much account now-a-days." The Transactions of the Vermont Medical Society was similarly facetious: The times have been,' says Macbeth [Act III], 'that when the brains were out the man would die. But now they rise again.' Quite possibly we shall soon hear that some German professor is exsecting it."

Theoretical misuse
Though Gage is considered the "index case for personality change due to frontal lobe damage", the uncertain extent of his brain damage and the limited understanding of his behavioral changes render him "of more historical than neurologic [sic] interest". Thus, Macmillan writes, "Phineas' story is [primarily] worth remembering because it illustrates how easily a small stock of facts becomes transformed into popular and scientific myth", the paucity of evidence having allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have". A similar concern was expressed as early as 1877, when British neurologist David Ferrier (writing to Harvard's Henry Pickering Bowditch in an attempt "to have this case definitely settled") complained that, "In investigating reports on diseases and injuries of the brain, I am constantly being amazed at the inexactitude and distortion to which they are subject by men who have some pet theory to support. The facts suffer so frightfully ..." More recently, neurologist Oliver Sacks refers to the "interpretations and misinterpretations [of Gage] from 1848 to the present", and Jarrett discusses the use of Gage to promote "the myth, found in hundreds of psychology and neuroscience textbooks, plays, films, poems, and YouTube skits[:] Personality is located in the frontal lobes... and once those are damaged, a person is changed forever."

Cerebral localization

In the 19th-century debate over whether the various mental functions are or are not localized in specific regions of the brain, both sides managed to enlist Gage in support of their theories. For example, after Eugene Dupuy wrote that Gage proved that the brain is not localized (characterizing him as a "striking case of destruction of the so-called speech centre without consequent aphasia") Ferrier replied by using Gage (along with the woodcuts of his skull and tamping iron from Harlow's 1868 paper) to support his thesis that the brain is localized.

Phrenology

Throughout the 19th century, adherents of phrenology contended that Gage's mental changes (his profanity, for example) stemmed from destruction of his mental "organ of Benevolence"—as phrenologists saw it, the part of the brain responsible for "goodness, benevolence, the gentle character ... [and] to dispose man to conduct himself in a manner conformed to the maintenance of social order"—and/or the adjacent "organ of Veneration"—related to religion and God, and respect for peers and those in authority. (Phrenology held that the organs of the "grosser and more animal passions are near the base of the brain; literally the lowest and nearest the animal man [while] highest and farthest from the sensual are the moral and religions feelings, as if to be nearest heaven". Thus Veneration and Benevolence are at the apex of the skull—the region of exit of Gage's tamping iron.)

Harlow wrote that Gage, during his convalescence, did not "estimate size or money accurately[,] would not take $1000 for a few pebbles" and was not particular about prices when visiting a local store; by these examples Harlow may have been implying damage to phrenology's "Organ of Comparison".

Psychosurgery and lobotomy
It is frequently asserted that what happened to Gage played a role in the later development of various forms of psychosurgery—particularly lobotomy—or even that Gage's accident constituted "the first lobotomy". Aside from the question of why the unpleasant changes usually (if hyperbolically) attributed to Gage would inspire surgical imitation, there is no such link, according to Macmillan:

"There is simply no evidence that any of these operations were deliberately designed to produce the kinds of changes in Gage that were caused by his accident, nor that knowledge of Gage's fate formed part of the rationale for them... [W]hat his case did show came solely from his surviving his accident: major operations [such as for tumors] could be performed on the brain without the outcome necessarily being fatal."

Somatic marker hypothesis
Antonio Damasio, in support of his somatic marker hypothesis (relating decision-making to emotions and their biological underpinnings), draws parallels between behaviors he ascribes to Gage and those of modern patients with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala. But Damasio's depiction of Gage has been severely criticized, for example by Kotowicz:

"Damasio is the principal perpetrator of the myth of Gage the -"

As Kihlstrom put it, "[M]any modern commentators exaggerate the extent of Gage's personality change, perhaps engaging in a kind of retrospective reconstruction based on what we now know, or think we do, about the role of the frontal cortex in self-regulation." Macmillan gives detailed criticism of Antonio Damasio's various presentations of Gage (some of which are joint work with Hannah Damasio and others).

Portraits

Two daguerreotype portraits of Gage, identi-fied in 2009 and 2010, are the only - of him known other than a plaster head cast taken for Bigelow in late 1849 (and now in the Warren Museum along with Gage's skull and tamping iron). The first portrait shows a "disfigured yet still-handsome" Gage with left eye closed and scars clearly visible, "well dressed and confident, even proud" and holding his iron, on which portions of its inscription can be made out. (For decades the portrait's owners had believed that it depicted an injured whaler with his harpoon.) The second portrait, copies of which are in the possession of two branches of the Gage family, shows Gage in a somewhat different pose, wearing the same waistcoat and possibly the same jacket, but with a different shirt and tie.

Authenticity of the portraits was confirmed by overlaying the inscription on the tamping iron, as seen in the portraits, against that on the actual tamping iron, and matching the subject's injuries to those preserved in the head cast. However, about when, where, and by whom the portraits were taken nothing is known, except that they were created no earlier than January 1850 (when the inscription was added to the tamping iron), on different occasions, and are likely by different photographers.

The portraits support other evidence that Gage's most serious mental changes were temporary. "That [Gage] was any form of vagrant following his injury is belied by these remarkable images", wrote Van Horn et al. "Although just one picture," Kean commented in reference to the first image discovered, "it exploded the common image of Gage as a dirty, disheveled misfit. This Phineas was proud, well-dressed, and disarmingly handsome."

title: Phineas Gage


text:
Talk:Geonosian style execution

This page does not belong in a general reference site. Granted that Star Wars is a major cultural phenomenon, and thus warrants more coverage than most movies, but this is a reference to a single scene in just one of the Star Wars movies. Furthermore, it's not a particularly novel form of execution. -Isomorphic 04:17, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Geonosian style execution


text:
Ełk

Ełk (former Łek; Lyck; Old Prussian: Luks; Yotvingian: Lukas), also seen absent Polish diacritics as Elk, is a city in northeastern Poland with 61,677 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the seat of Ełk County in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. It lies on the shore of Ełk Lake, which was formed by a glacier, and is surrounded by extensive forests. It is the largest city and unofficial capital of historical Masuria. One of the principal attractions in the area is legal hunting.

Middle Ages
The area where the town of Ełk is located was originally inhabited by Jatvingians, a Baltic peoples, during the Early Middle Ages. By 1281, Skomand the last leader of the pagan Jatvingians, capitulated to the crusading Teutonic Knights, who initially were invited in 1226 by Konrad I of Masovia from the Polish Piast dynasty to put an end to the constant pagan raids into his territory.

After 1323, the northern part of the region was administered by the commandery of Brandenburg, while the larger part with the later town belonged to Balga commandery. A former Old Prussian settlement, the town was first documented in 1398 around a castle built by the Teutonic Knights. The town's name has various postulated origins. Its German version Lyck is postulated to be derived from its Old Prussian name, Luks (from the word for waterlily, luka), while another theory holds that the name comes from Polish word "łęg" meaning meadow. Old Polish names of the town included Łek, Łęg and Łęk. It received its town rights in 1445.

After the outbreak of the Thirteen Years' War in 1454, the town sided with the Prussian Confederation, at whose request the Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon announced the incorporation of the region into the Kingdom of Poland, which resulted in the town becoming part of the Polish state. The town was briefly captured by the Teutonic Knights in 1455, and later on, it was conquered alternately by the Poles and the Teutonic Knights. After 1466 it was a part of Poland as a fief.

Early modern era
In 1537, Duke Albert of Prussia donated an estate to Jan Malecki, a Polish printer from Kraków who had either fled or moved to Ducal Prussia for material reasons, to establish a printing house. After converting to Lutheranism, Malecki translated and published Martin Luther's Small Catechism in Polish In 1546 the first school for secondary education in Masuria was founded in the city, where Polish nobles from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as Poles and Germans from Ducal Prussia were taught in Polish; the position of a Polish teacher remained in place until 1819. Polish pastor, translator, publisher and co-creator of the literary Polish language, Hieronim Malecki, was the school's first rector. In the mid-16th century Ełk was one of the most thriving centers of Polish-language printing. In 1600, the town's population was Polish, and almost all innkeepers had Polish surnames. In 1639 the King of Poland Władysław IV Vasa visited the town. It remained under Polish suzerainty until 1660.

18th and 19th centuries
In 1709-10, the plague claimed 1,300 victims. In 1831, 300 people, about 10 percent of the populace, died of the cholera, in 1837 another 80 and 333 in 1852. In 1825, Lyck was inhabited by 1,748 Germans and 1,394 Poles. At the beginning of the 19th century, a Polish-language school was organised in the city by Tymoteusz Gizewiusz In 1820, Fryderyk Tymoteusz Krieger became the superintendent of the school and actively defended the rights of local Poles to use the Polish language. Kireger also prepared Polish educational programs, in opposition to attempts at Germanization by Prussian authorities.

In 1840, the German-language newspaper "Lycker gemeinnütziges Unterhaltungsblatt", later called "Lycker Zeitung", was founded. Between 1842 and 1845, a Polish newspaper "Przyjaciel Ludu Łecki" (Łek's Friend of the People) was printed in the city, whose aim was to resist Germanisation and cultivate Polish folk traditions as well as educate the local rural population. In May 1845, a Polish resistance movement in the city was organized by Kazmierz Szulc, whose aim was to prepare local Polish youth for an uprising. During the January Uprising, weapons were smuggled through the city to the Russian Partition of Poland, and Polish insurgents fleeing the Russian Partition took refuge in the city; among others, a detachment of Colonel Józef Konstanty Ramotowski passed through it.

In 1885 the city, under its modern name Ełk, was named capital of Masuria by the Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland. In the late 19th century it was the largest town of the region (according to data from 1880 and 1890), before being surpassed by Osterode (Ostróda) (according to data from 1905 and 1925).

From 1896 to 1902, "Gazeta Ludowa", a Polish-language newspaper, heavily subsidised by banks from Greater Poland representing the Polish national movement in Masuria, was published in the city. It soon faced repression and discrimination from the German authorities which led to its demise; its paid circulation dropped from 357 copies in 1896 to less than 250 at the turn-of-the-century. According to German-American author, Richard Blanke, the "demise marked the end of the second major effort by Polish nationalists to establish a journalistic foothold in Masuria". In 1896, Polish and Masurian activists founded the Masurian People's Party in the city, which sought to resist efforts of German authorities at forced Germanization. The co-founder of the party was poet Michał Kajka, today honoured in Ełk with a monument in the centre of the city. From the start, the party was subject to severe repressions and attacks by Prussian authorities. In the German federal elections, the MPL received 229 votes in 1898 and 20 in 1912 in the Lyck constituency.

20th century
In 1910, Lyck had more than 13,000 inhabitants. Mateusz Siuchniński gives the percentage of Poles in 1900 as 35.7% but warns that the numbers come from lowered German estimates. Many citizens fled during World War I, when Imperial Russian troops attacked the region, but returned after the battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. English and Italian troops were deployed in the town after the Treaty of Versailles to supervise the East Prussian plebiscite. The plebiscite was preceded by a campaign of violence and terror by the Germans against the Poles and even against Allied soldiers. The Germans vandalized Polish information boards and held an anti-Polish rally at which they encouraged the beating of Poles and the devastation of their homes and property. In April 1920, the German Sicherheitswehr even battered Italian soldiers, two fatally. Voting under such conditions resulted in 8,339 votes for Germany and 8 for Poland, which just regained independence. In 1922, a Polish consular agency was opened, which was upgraded to a vice-consulate the next year.

It was in Lyck that the first-ever weekly newspaper in the Hebrew language, Ha-Magid ("the preacher") was founded in 1856 by Eliezer Lipmann Silbermann, a local rabbi. The paper was eventually moved to Berlin. In Weimar Germany anti-Semitism became prevalent, which led to persecution of the local Jewish population even before the Nazis took power. An anti-Semitic publication, Die jüdische Überlegenheit (The Jewish Supremacy) attacking the Jews circulated in 1927 at a local gathering of fascist sympathizers In 1932, the local pharmacist Leo Frankenstein was attacked; a hand grenade was thrown into his home. The wave of anti-Semitic repressions intensified after Nazis gained power in Germany in 1933 and many local merchants and intellectuals of Jewish descent were arrested. During Kristallnacht, Jewish shops and synagogue were plundered and devastated in the town. Facing these events, several Jews of Lyck decided to escape, some abroad, some to Berlin, others as far as Shanghai Of those Jews who remained, 80 were murdered in various Nazi concentration and death camps.

The city also was the site of German prison camps for Norwegian and Soviet PoWs during World War II. The Polish resistance was active and operated one of the region's main smuggling points for Polish underground press in the city. It was heavily damaged by bombardments. The Soviet Army approached in January 1945. The city was placed under Polish administration in April 1945 and the remaining German inhabitants were expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. It was rebuilt and its modern Polish name Ełk was confirmed as official.

Contemporary times
In 1999, Ełk was visited by Pope John Paul II. About 300,000 people attended a papal Mass.

In 2017, the anti-Muslim Ełk riots occurred after a fatal stabbing of a 21-year-old man by a Muslim kebab cook. Several hundred men surrounded the Prince Kebab restaurant, tossing firecrackers, stones, and Molotov cocktails at the shop. Police initially stood by and did not intervene for several hours; however, when they did intervene the crowd turned against them as well. Following the riots in Ełk, other attacks on kebab restaurants took place throughout Poland.

In 2018, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Poland's independence, a monument to Józef Piłsudski was erected in front of the town hall. The Marshal of Poland was also honored with a mural on one of the townhouses in the city center.

Districts
The city of Ełk is divided into 14 administrative units, known in Polish as osiedla:

 * Baranki
 * Centrum
 * Jeziorna
 * Konieczki
 * Osiedle Bogdanowicza
 * Osiedle Grunwaldzkie
 * Osiedle Kochanowskiego
 * Osiedle Tuwima
 * Osiedle Wczasowe
 * Pod Lasem
 * Północ I
 * Północ II
 * Szyba
 * Zatorze

Notable people

 * Arthur Ludwich (1840–1920), German classical philologist who specialized in Homeric studies
 * Charles Edward Moldenke (1860–1935), American Lutheran minister and Egyptologist
 * Theodor Simon Flatau (1860–1937), German physician
 * Karol Bahrke (1868–1935), Polish activist, journalist and book publisher
 * Otto von Schrader (1888–1945), German admiral
 * Theodor Horydczak (1889–1971), American photographer
 * Alfred Müller (1905–1959), German middle-distance runner, competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics
 * Kurt Symanzik (1923–1983), German physicist
 * Siegfried Lenz (1926–2014), German author; honorary citizen of Ełk since 2011.
 * Klaus Gerwien (1940–2018), German soccer player
 * Leszek Błażyński (1949–1992), Polish boxer
 * Roman Czepe (born 1956), Polish politician
 * Andrzej Zgutczyński (born 1958), Polish footballer
 * Dariusz Zgutczyński (born 1965), Polish footballer
 * Cezary Zamana (born 1967), Polish cyclist
 * Paweł Sobolewski (born 1979), Polish footballer
 * Tomasz Abramowicz (born 1979), Polish footballer

Mayors

 * Adam Puza (1990–1994)
 * Zdzisław Fadrowski (1994–2002)
 * Janusz Nowakowski (2002–2006)
 * Tomasz Andrukiewicz (since 2006)

Education

 * Private Economic Academy
 * Nursery School
 * Higher Catholic Seminary

High schools

 * Zespół Szkół Ekonomicznych
 * Zespół Szkół Mechaniczno - Elektrycznych
 * Zespół Szkół nr 1
 * Zespół Szkół nr 2 im. K. K. Baczyńskiego (swww)
 * Zespół Szkół nr 3 im. J. H. Małeckich (www)
 * I Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. S. Żeromskiego (www)
 * Zespół Szkół Rolniczych im. M. Rataja
 * Zespół Szkół Samorządowych
 * Zespół Szkół nr.6 im. M. Rataja (www)

Sports
Local sports clubs include football club Mazur Ełk, boxing club Mazur Ełk, cycling club LUKK Ełk, judo club MKS Żak Ełk and basketball club Wilki Ełk.

The Polish Cyclo-cross Championships were held in Ełk in 1998, 2005 and 2012.

Religion
Since the medieval Christianization of the region, the city's population was Roman Catholic, and after the Reformation, it was almost entirely Lutheran until World War II. After the war, the main religion in Ełk became again Roman Catholicism, although a number of Protestant churches are also represented and play an important role in the religious life of the population. These include the Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal (Assemblies of God - Kościół Zielonoświątkowy) and other churches. Ełk is the center of the Catholic Diocese of Ełk with its bishop Jerzy Mazur.

Twin towns and sister cities
Ełk is twinned with:

 * 🇮🇹 Galatone, Italy
 * 🇳🇴 Lørenskog, Norway
 * 🇩🇪 Nettetal, Germany
 * Alytus, Lithuania
 * 🇮🇹 Orbassano, Italy

Former twin towns:
 * 🇷🇺 Ozyorsk, Russian Federation
 * 🇧🇾 Lida, Belarus

In March 2022, Ełk ended its partnership with the Russian city of Ozyorsk as a reaction to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Coat of arms
The current coat of arms of Ełk were adopted in 1999, after the town was visited by the Pope John Paul II. The colors have been changed (from green to yellow), the deer is different than in the former emblem. Lastly is the addition of the insignia of the Papacy.

Until 1967, a different emblem with the two-faced head of the god Janus was used, but its origin is unknown.

title: Ełk


text:
Giżycko

Giżycko (former Lec or Łuczany; ) is a town in northeastern Poland with 28,597 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is situated between Lake Kisajno and Lake Niegocin in the region of Masuria, within the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. It is the seat of Giżycko County.

Giżycko is a popular summer tourist destination due to its location within the Masurian Lake District and possesses numerous historical monuments, including a 14th-century Teutonic castle.

Antiquity and Middle Ages
The first known settlements in the area of today's Giżycko were recorded in Roman times by Tacitus in his Germania and are connected to Amber Road in vicinity of which Giżycko was located. A defensive settlement of the Baltic Prussians was known to exist in the area, and in IX was recorded as being ruled by king known as Izegup or Jesegup.

After his failed attempt in 997 AD Bolesław I the Brave sent another expedition in 1008 to conquer/Christianize the Old Prussians. Just like St. Adalbert the missionary Bruno of Querfurt was killed by Sudovians near Lake Niegocin in 1009, and a memorial the Bruno – cross was erected near in 1910.

The Teutonic Knights built a castle named Lötzen (Łuczany in Polish, later also Lec) in 1340, located at the isthmus between two lakes in today's Masuria. Lötzen was administered within the commandery of Balga. Since the Late Middle Ages, it was mainly populated by Poles from nearby Mazovia, known as Masurians.

In 1454, Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon incorporated the region to the Kingdom of Poland upon the request of the Prussian Confederation, and after the subsequent outbreak of the Thirteen Years’ War in 1454, Łuczany sided with Poland. The settlement was captured by the Teutonic Knights in 1455, but the Poles recaptured it the next year. After the peace treaty signed in Toruń in 1466 it became part of Poland as a fief held by the Teutonic Order, until the dissolution of the Teutonic state in 1525.

Modern era
The settlement near the castle received town privileges, with a coat of arms and seal, in 1612, while part of the Duchy of Prussia (under Polish suzerainty until 1701). The first mayor was Paweł Rudzki. The Polish name of the town, used by its overwhelmingly Polish population, at the time was Łuczany.

Lötzen became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701 and was made part of the newly established province of East Prussia in 1773. In 1709/10 the plague claimed 800 victims, only 119 inhabitants survived. In the 19th century, a new Lutheran church based on design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel was erected in the centre of the town. Lötzen became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the Prussian-led unification of Germany.

In June 1807, the Polish corps of generals Józef Zajączek and Jan Henryk Dąbrowski were stationed in the town. After the Napoleonic Wars, the town was hit by fire and famine. King Frederick William IV of Prussia, during his visit in 1845, was received in the town by 10,000 impoverished people chanting Chleba! (Bread! in Polish). The King replied to the crowd in Polish as the last Prussian ruler to speak Polish. From 1875 to 1892 the Polish-language weekly newspaper Gazeta Lecka was published.

In 1844–1848 the Boyen Fortress, a fortress named after the Prussian war-minister Hermann von Boyen, was built on a small landtongue between lake Mamry (Mauersee) and lake Niegocin (Löwentinsee). This fortress is one of the largest and best conditioned fortresses of the 19th century. In 1942–1945 it was the headquarters of the German military intelligence service (Fremde Heere Ost) under Reinhard Gehlen.

As a result of the treaty of Versailles, the 1920 East Prussian plebiscite was organized under the control of the League of Nations. During the preparations for the plebiscite, a German militia attacked a pro-Polish rally with around 1,000 people. Speakers and people attending the rally were severely beaten; the main pro-Polish leader of the rally Fryderyk Leyk was beaten so badly that he just barely survived. Afterwards the attitude of Polish population in the town was resigned and part of the population boycotted the vote while others openly voted for Germany fearing revenge; 4,900 votes were cast to remain in East Prussia, and therefore Germany, and none for Poland. Afterwards aggressive Germanisation was intensified, and during Nazi rule in Germany, there was practical ban on speaking Polish in public places in the town.

In the 1930s Lötzen was the garrison of several military units of the Wehrmacht as a Sub-area Headquarter of Wehrkreis I, which was headquartered at Königsberg. Staff-, maintenance- and guardtroops of Hitler's headquarter Wolfsschanze and the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, army high command) were also based in or nearby Lötzen. The OKH was based at the Mauerwald area, ca. 10 km north of Giżycko, an undestroyed bunker system. The town was occupied by the Soviet Union's Red Army in 1945 during World War II and placed under Polish administration after the war ended. The German-speaking populace who had not been evacuated during the war were subsequently expelled westward in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. The remaining Polish populace was joined by Poles displaced from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, particularly from the Vilnius Region. The town was renamed Giżycko in 1946 in honor of the Masurian folklorist Gustaw Gizewiusz, a 19th-century Evangelical-Lutheran pastor in southern Masuria, who had greatly supported Polish language and Polish culture and stood against Germanisation of Masuria.

From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively part of the Suwałki Voivodeship.

Demographics
Up to the 19th century, the Polish population formed a majority in the city, with a small presence of Germans. By the middle of 19th century German minority became much more numerous and Germanization made rapid progress in the city.

Sports
When Poland made the so far only international appearance in bandy, the city was represented. The local football team is. It competes in the lower leagues.

Primary school

 * Szkoła Podstawowa nr 4 im. I Dywizji Piechoty
 * Szkoła podstawowa nr 5
 * Szkoła Podstawowa nr 6
 * Szkoła Podstawowa nr 7 im. Janusza Korczaka

Middle school

 * Gimnazjum nr 1 w Giżycku im. Jana Pawła II
 * Gimnazjum nr 2 w Giżycku im. Chwały Oręża Polskiego
 * Katolickie Gimnazjum im. św. Brunona z Kwerfurtu
 * Zespół Szkół nr 1 im. Mikołaja Kopernika

High school

 * I Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Wojciecha Kętrzyńskiego
 * II Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Gustawa Gizewiusza
 * Zespół Szkół Elektronicznych i Informatycznych im. Komisji Edukacji Narodowej
 * Zespół Szkół Kształtowania Środowiska i Agrobiznesu
 * Zespół Szkół Zawodowych
 * Katolickie Liceum im. św. Brunona z Kwerfurtu

College

 * Medyczne Studium Zawodowe im. Hanny Chrzanowskiej
 * Prywatna Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa

Notable residents

 * Marcin Giersz (1808–1895), Masurian activist, publicist of Polish literature
 * Gustaw Gizewiusz (1810–1848), Polish pastor, folklorist, and translator
 * Wojciech Kętrzyński (1838–1918), Polish historian and activist
 * Paul Davidson (1867–1927), German film producer
 * Jan Bułhak (1876–1950), Polish pioneer of photography in Poland
 * Franz Pfemfert (1879–1954), German publisher
 * Lothar Gall (1936–2024), German historian
 * Łukasz Broź (born 1985), Polish footballer
 * Mateusz Broź (born 1988), Polish footballer
 * Marcin Budziński (born 1990), Polish footballer
 * Patryk Kun (born 1995), Polish footballer
 * Jakub Kochanowski (born 1997), Polish volleyball player, 2018 World Champion

Twin towns — Sister cities
Giżycko is twinned with:

title: Giżycko


text:
Talk:Bridge pattern

Too Technical
Even with the example, this article is impenetrable. Some of the problem may just be bad grammar/phrasing, but since I don't understand what it's trying to say I can't fix it myself. 18.24.0.120 04:23, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The diagram and the accompaning Java code do not match. According to the code the arrow from Abstraction to Implementor is actually from RefinedAbstraction to Implementor.

C++
Sample for C++ bridge pattern is missing.

Code Added for C++
Added code for C++ but als also derived another class from the Abstraction to demonstrate the interchangebility - the main purpose of this Design Pattern. For the C++ code, the aggregate from Abstraction to Implementor is correct. The code for C# and Java isn't (July 11th, 2006).
 * Why is the c++ code too unnecessarily obfuscated. Why do we need to have a vector of shapes just to show how it works on 2 different types of circles.  I don't think the reader cares about using iterators to traverse a container, he/she wants to see how to use the bridge pattern.  Also, what is std::mem_fun and std::bind2nd doing here? and stdafx.h is not a standard header.  They don't help show what a bridge is and also confuses a reader!
 * I have rewritten the code using the same ideas as all of the other ones. It is more readable.--Michael miceli (talk) 05:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Vladimir Bosnjak 10:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

C# Code now compiles
Made the C# code compilable, aggregate still incorrect.

Removed comment on C++ implementation
Somebody added a line that the C++ code isn't the bridge pattern. It sure is - only more efficiënt implemented. The poster/editor noted that a variable is "pushed up" (whatever that means). Please note that I implemented more abstract abstractions. That's what abstract classes are for! Please, next time, start a tech discussion first before editing the related wiki-page. Vladimir Bosnjak 18:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

What Needs To Be Done?
This article still seems to be too technical. That might be the case easely indeed for some or many. -->>What exactly needs to be done to make it more accessible? I could add a non-software image to visualize the "car example". I could add even more images, refining the steps. I could do a lot more in general. First of all I'd like to see a quick tutorial on how to add images to a wiki page. If someone is willing, please move to my talk-page and help me out with that part. Currently the "wiki manual" on this subject is overwhelming. My time is limited I'm affraid to read it all. I believe a detailed explanation on the details (e.g. code) is out of place. Yet I do agree that more detailed explanation is required. However, this needs teamwork. More insights on that later. Vladimir Bosnjak 20:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)Vladimir Bosnjak 20:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I recommend deleting the current "Car abstraction" example, as it is incorrect. A road is not an implementation of a car. For that matter, I would avoid using any automotive analogies here. Consider a real-world bridge-- i.e., a structure allowing a road (and therefore cars) to pass over an obstruction. This has little to do with the Bridge pattern, so examples involving cars and roads are likely to just confuse the reader. 14-JUN-2007 Mahler3 21:17, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

 * I tagged the example as being too confusing. I think it would make more sense if only two examples were given, instead of listing two, and then going into four or so examples with the overly complicated drawing api example. Car->Jaguar Car->Mercedes. Shape->Circle Shape->Square. --Odie5533 03:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Nallap 11:54, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, since the car example has persisted for many months despite it being incorrect and confusing, and no one has defended it, I finally decided to just get rid of it. Honestshrubber (talk) 18:41, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Is the UML notation wrong for the implementation of the Implementor interface?
Isn't an implementation of an interface supposed to be a dashed line with an white arrow head? Right now the ConcreteImplementor connects to the Implementor with a solid line with a white arrow head.

Suggestions for changes for Car abstraction:
The Car example needs some changes as it does not explain the pattern practically. The change I would suggest is as follows.

Car is an abstraction and may be the refined abstraction of car can be Mercedes Make-I (e.g C-class) and Make-II (E-class).Then I totally disagree with Road as the implementation as it is too generic/amateuristic and not a very good real life example. I would suggest the actual implementation of the car can be Engine as it is the heart of any car. So refined implementation can be some thing like a Petrol Engine implementation and a diesel engine implementation. More refining can be done here something like 2-valve engine, 4,6,8 valve engines etc. Any feed back? Also this requires a total revamp of the examples in all languages. I can take care of C++ and C#. Let me know if this is OK.

Does the Shape example at all justify the Bridge Pattern
I find it difficult to see the light when it comes to the Bridge Pattern. The most common example I see is the Shape example which is also used here. I can easily understand the example, but I find the solution using the Bridge Pattern complete silly.

Using the Bridge Pattern each shape instance is tied to a certain Drawing API. But that seems silly to me; why should shapes be bound to a media at all?

Many places including here the Bridge Pattern is related to working on several operating systems. But can you imagine that some of the shapes in a single running instance of program is on one operating system while others are on another operating system? I cannot, and therefore it seems strange that each shape should have an individual member signifying the operating system (using a Singleton pattern containg a strategy (cf. Strategy Pattern) seems more appropriate in this case).

If facing the problem of drawing using several different APIs in a single running instance of a program. I would use a different pattern (don't know if it has a name). Instead of tying each shape to a drawing API, I would supply the Drawing API to the draw operation. Using the C++ example the main code would look like this: //The Client. // -->> int main merely demonstrates the interchangebility. int main {  Shape* TheShape[4]; //2 shapes x 2 implementations = 4 client-options. DrawingAPI* DA[2]; //2 Implementations. DA[0] = new OpenGL; DA[1] = new DirectX;  TheShape[0] = new Circle(1, 2, 7.5); TheShape[0]->Draw(DA[0]); //Draw circle with OpenGL  TheShape[1] = new Circle(5, 7, 27.5); TheShape[1]->Draw(DA[1]); //Draw circle with DirectX  TheShape[2] = new Square(10, 14); TheShape[2]->Draw(DA[0]); //Draw square with OpenGL  TheShape[3] = new Square(2.9, 80); TheShape[3]->Draw(DA[1]); //Draw square with DirectX  //Give back allocated memory. delete DA[0], DA[1]; delete TheShape[0], TheShape[1], TheShape[2], TheShape[3];  return 0; } Another reason that this makes more sense is that the "Drawing API" in this case could also represent the media, so that you can draw the same shapes in several windows and on a printer, etc.

While I beleive I understand the Bridge Pattern, I still lack an example that justifies its use.

Thomas Linder Puls, Prolog Development Center, Denmark

 * One can't say. No real analysis has been provided to start with. But I don't believe the requirement as defined in the article (multiple shapes interchanged with multiple API's) is a good practical example. I agree with you on that. Interchanging shapes with devices (windows, forms, printers etc.) is a much better example.

 * I think that the one and only strength of this pattern lies in it's ability to demonstrate how multiple objects can be mixed the object oriented way. When I start to think hard, I too have problems finding the right example. If a good (realistic) example has been found, then the next question is: would the less experianced coder understand?
 * Vladimir Bosnjak 22:49, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Objects can be mixed the object oriented way very easily: just add pointers and methods (for an example see http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/multiple-inheritance.html#faq-25.5). Actually the so-called bridge pattern is one case of triviality and basic principles' violation that any newbie will start overexploiting the second month working as a C++ developer. Vladimir, I think the shape example is completely wrong: it violates encapsulation and abstraction and seriously mutilates inheritance. Shape should (really) be pure virtual and Drawcircle, DrawSquare and the like should be protected methods in the respective Shape subclasses. And of course data like radius should be private to the relevant classes. What does a square need a radius for? And of course you should have a method to set the drawingAPI pointer, otherwise it makes no sense, it is a huge roundabout just to make a few simple calls and introduce a lot of bugs ;-). Such a system could only draw circles and squares, but if you wanna draw a line you must touch all three classes, while if done correctly you merely need to add a line class. I believe you probably had in mind more complex subclasses of shape, such as "car" for example, which might need a number of calls to basic drawing api's. But again Thomas' way is of course correct and consistent with the sanity of OOP: the desired device context would be fed to the shape instance at run-time, so that it can call the api's functions directly.Dpser 13:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

 * The both of you are right but I am weary of using a device context in code examples because many students never used a device context before they're taught some basic patterns. However, I'm violating encapsulation and abstraction but I'm not motivated to do my best anymore because some lone ranger deletes C++ code because he thinks Java should be the standard. See my talk page. It takes way too many steps before some kind of justice is done. I may work a few hours on this topic only to see the next day the C++ code has dissapeared here as well... But make no mistake, I agree with both Dpser and Thomas and the C++ code should be corrected (encapsualation and abstraction violations). Le Comte Valmont 20:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Please read this Talk:Design pattern (computer science) the guy wasn't ill intended. Your source code should be moved to wiki books, with a link here to wikibooks just like Singleton pattern --lexxdark (talk) 05:02, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

 * I think the shape example indicates the Strategy Pattern much more than the Bridge. The Bridge is a good way of encapsulating differences when there are two independent axes of variation. It prevents an explosion of subclasses. Neither the car nor the shape example really shows this. 04 September 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.99.6.9 (talk) 20:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

why are their a bunch of different code examples?
that's just retarded. Give one or two languages and leave it be. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 169.231.11.44 (talk) 06:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC).
 * You might be taken seriously if you gave a reason why there should not be examples in many languages. 35.9.26.55 04:35, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

 * There are two problems with the examples. One is that there are two few of them.  Why not C++?  Why not Python?  Why not Java?  The other problem is exactly the opposite; there are too many of them.  When you try to cover all bases, you end up with the main point of the article getting lost in the noise.  I'm with the anonymous post above; just pick one or two representitive languages and let it go at that.  Pick langages which are well known and/or easy to read without knowing the syntax details.  -- RoySmith (talk) 14:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

 * I think it's a good thing that there are a few different languages here. After all, this is a software engineering page. There's a diagram, some explanatory text and a few examples. Sounds perfectly good to me. Philomathoholic 08:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

 * I think the purpose of this article is to give explanation about the pattern. So, a single example may be sufficient to describe the purpose of it. If there is too much examples, the readers may get lost. For example, there is a reference in the beginning of the article about Visual Prolog, so the reader will need to read the Visual Prolog even if it has already read the Java example. Maybe only one example may be sufficient (with clean and easy syntax language). The other examples could be given in the external links. There is a lot of references out there. Edans 16:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the sample adequately defines the bridge pattern, it feel more like a Strategy pattern (Anon) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.111.71.111 (talk) 04:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

 * I am with adding as much as there could be. just add "examine only one example for deep understanding, by the language of your choice.". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.72.41.145 (talk) 11:24, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it is good to provide example in different languages, because understanding of structure or pattern depends on your understanding of implemented language, we can always refer to example in language that we are familiar with, and of course we don’t have to look at all different language example, i.e. I am more comfortable with JAVA so I usually jump to java example, which give me enough understanding of pattern, i don’t have to look at python example if i don’t know python. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaikh sharique (talk • contribs) 08:31, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

 * As it is now, this page is a nearly-unusable mess. These examples should absolutely be condensed; if there are crucial differences between languages and how the pattern is implemented in them, these should be addressed directly in the article's text with minimal code examples for illustration.  Right now this page resembles a very low quality github repo.  Someone above said "this is a software engineering page", but this is first and foremost an encyclopedic entry for a particular design pattern, which is not reflected in its current state.73.154.104.67 (talk) 19:00, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

A single good example in pseudocode would be ideal. All software engineers should understand pseudocode (assuming it's well written of course!). As for what a good example might be - no idea either! The best explanation of the pattern I've seen was on youtube (Christopher Okhravi – Bridge Pattern – Design Patterns (ep 11)), but even then it just seemed like what you would naturally do rather than any special pattern. Which might be absolutely right; we might instinctively reach to code in ways that constitute a design pattern. 2A02:C7F:DCA4:7A00:8C22:E3B2:66AD:8724 (talk) 14:14, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Deleted many examples
I deleted many of the examples. Erlang isn't that popular (yet)(according to wikipedia), and c#, c++, and java are industry standards and university standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael miceli (talk • contribs) 06:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Commentary:

"c# and java are industry standards and university standards" which means that they are the most important. What you did is wrong (at least in this respect). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.72.132.1 (talk) 12:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I vote to leave only a Java example in place. C# programmers can easily understand the syntax (I'm a C# programmers by the way - not a Java one). This isn't a programming tutorial - so too much emphasis on implementation distracts from the point and clutters the article. LivingAndLearning (talk) 13:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The c++ example has many problems. It has straight forward bugs (leaks) and some very controvertial coding habits (using namespace std;), but it's not all, the whole design doesn't fit c++. Seems to have been written by a programmer of a GC language with no c++ experience. I cannot fix it because I don't exactly understand the purpose of this pettern, but it is clearly not supposed to be done this way. --Itaj Sherman (talk) 12:44, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Typo?
The bridge pattern is useful when not only the class itself varies often, but the class does also

Is there a typo in there? It effectively says 'when not only X but also X'! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.169.133.251 (talk) 10:47, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I think there is a small mistake
I am not familiar with java that well- so maybe it's not a mistake, but: it is written: interface Shape { public void draw;                                           // low-level public void resizeByPercentage(double pct);    // high-level }  class CircleShape implements Shape { private double x, y, radius; private DrawingAPI drawingAPI; } but the "private DrawingApi drawingAPI" should be a member of the Shape interface. that's exactly the association (aggregation) from the Abstraction and the Implementor. or in other words, the implementor is a member of the abstraction, not of the refined abstractions. so it should be: interface Shape { public void draw;                                           // low-level public void resizeByPercentage(double pct);    // high-level private DrawingAPI drawingAPI;  //NEW LINE!! } This is my first time i write something in Wikipedia. always was a reader. i hope i did it right :-) Nirhur (talk) 18:00, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's probably better the way it is because some other oo languages do not allow private/protected on interfaces (c#, I guess others too), I was actualy surprised that java allowed them, since interfaces should explain what an object exposes to other classes, not how it works internally
 * as it is put here "Interface generally refers to an abstraction that an entity provides of itself to the outside."
 * more intresting is that I couldn't find any example of interface definition like the above with public/private members. Did anyone check if it actually compiles? I looked around here http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/concepts/interface.html
 * --lexxdark (talk) 19:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Another thing, private is not right in an interface (no way to use it) it should probably be protected
 * Further analyzing the documentation I noticed that it states that public can be omitted... But it does not say what can be used there, tho logically private can not be used
 * --lexxdark (talk) 19:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Smok x (talk) 21:02, 13 July 2010 (UTC) Current Java example is not quite correct. One of the benefits of Bridge pattern is that clients do not need to know the exact implementation class. In the example the client explicitly instantiates DrawingAPI1 or DrawingAPI2. Shape should be abstract class instead of interface, and Shape must choose which implementation to use: public abstract class Shape { Shape { // Choose implementation here. Clients don't know anything about it. drawingAPI = DrawingAPIFactory.getInstance.getDrawingAPI; }     public abstract void draw; public abstract void resizeByPercentage(double pct); protected DrawingAPI getDrawingAPI;  // For subclasses. private DrawingAPI drawingAPI; }

No need for two Perl examples
I don't think there is a need for two Perl Moose examples so I moved this one to the discussion page. If there is more than one Perl example then one should probably use just core modules. Argel1200 (talk) 19:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

C++ example code doesn't match description
I don't know if all the code examples are the same, but the C++ example code doesn't match the description. The "maintains reference to the implementation" is in the wrong class, so it does not follow the pattern. —Długosz (talk) 16:12, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Is it me or is this page wrong?
As some others have indicated, this seems to be describing the Strategy pattern, not the Bridge pattern. With the Strategy pattern you have a class with some functionality that needs to get implemented. The functionality is farmed off to a separate class who implements the functionality. With a Bridge pattern, you have an interface that must be implemented. You have multiple classes that implement that interface and you choose the correct one for your circumstances. It is often (almost always?) used in conjunction with an abstract factory.

The difference is subtle. The Strategy patten implements functionality that is plugged into an object. It is often a single method, or a group of methods that are used by the original object. For example, I might have a print method that prints to a screen and a print method that prints to a printer. The Bridge pattern implements an entire interface. So for instace if I am implementing a GUI I'll have a Swing version of my object and an Android version of my object. The bridge connects the abstraction to the implementation.

Mikekchar (talk) 02:27, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

 * It's disappointing to see that this page is still wrong after all these years, especially considering this is the first Google hit. As has been mentioned, *the example is not the bridge pattern*.  More specifically, to quote directly from the GoF book, "All operations on...subclasses are implemented in terms of abstract operations from the...interface".  Or in other words, the refined abstractions (CircleShape) should all just be calling methods of their abstract parent (Shape), which would presumably call drawingAPI methods.  That's a bridge.  This example is not.

 * 206.53.78.59 (talk) 22:09, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

 * I don't think the above objections hold up. Note that it is the reasoning behind the pattern that defines its key elements, and that the details, the exact form, can vary. The full quote from the GoF book is "All operations on Window subclasses are implemented in terms of abstract operations from the WindowImp interface." That is, in their description (and this can be seen in other examples in the book), the Abstraction provides a way for RefinedAbstractions to obtain a reference to the current instance of Implementation, and then use the Implementation's interface to call operations on ConcreteImplementations. Furthermore, I don't think that it is crucial to the Bridge pattern that the reference to the Implementation resides in the Abstraction. Now, it's true that the "logistics" of supplying RefinedAbstractions with this dependency may be somewhat more complicated, but this doesn't imply that client code would suddenly become dependent on concrete implementations - the job of providing the dependency can still be delegated to another object, in much the same way as before (using a factory, or a DI container).

 * About the Strategy pattern: The form of Bridge and Strategy is nearly the same, and the difference is subtle. Bridge is a structural pattern that aims to decouple the Abstraction from its Implementations (and hide the concrete implementations from client code). Strategy, on the other hand, is a behavioral pattern, where concrete strategies define a family of related behaviors that client code can choose from - to quote the GoF book again, "Clients must be aware of different Strategies. [...] Therefore you should use the Strategy pattern only when the variation in behavior is relevant to clients." (Note that these behaviors are also implementations in the similar sense used in the description of the Bridge pattern - so the difference is really in the intent).

 * SlightlyStrangeQuark (talk) 23:39, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

C# example
What is the purpose for the IAbstractBridge inteface in the C# example? I see no techical or didactical reason for not just creating the AbstractBridge directly, with no interface. 5.23.32.98 (talk) 18:07, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Overview
The Bridge design pattern is one of the twenty-three well-known GoF design patterns that describe how to solve recurring design problems to design flexible and reusable object-oriented software, that is, objects that are easier to implement, change, test, and reuse.

What problems can the Bridge design pattern solve?
 * An abstraction and its implementation should be defined and extended independently from each other.
 * A compile-time binding between an abstraction and its implementation should be avoided so that an implementation can be selected at run-time.

When using subclassing, an implementation is selected at compile-time and can't be changed at run-time.

What solution does the Bridge design pattern describe?
 * Separate an abstraction from its implementation  by putting them in separate class hierarchies.
 * Implement the  in terms of (by delegating to) an   object.

This enables to configure an  with an   object at run-time. See also the UML class and sequence diagram below. Vanderjoe (talk) 12:29, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Facilitates composition over inheritance and making abstraction concrete
I suggest that attention be drawn to the following:

 * Abstract classes define an interface for concrete implementations to implement. This interface is all the abstract methods required to be implemented by the concrete implementations of the abstract class. ie. The implementor interface already exists as abstract methods in abstract classes that use inheritance rather than bridge/stategy pattern.
 * Often, these abstract methods are not accessible to users, but are called by concrete methods of the abstract class. The implementor interface is different in purpose and use to the abstraction. Users of the abstraction don't need to be calling this interface directly. If we use abstract classes and inheritance rather than bridge/strategy, we combine two separate interfaces into one class - the abstraction interface that the user cares about and the implementor interface the user does not care about.
 * The bridge and strategy patterns involve extracting the implementor interface into a separate class and using composition-over-inheritance in the abstraction, reducing the abstraction to only the abstraction interface the user cares about.
 * The because of the use of composition-over-inheritance, the abstraction may often be converted into a concrete class.

Individual87981263 (talk) 11:35, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Bridge pattern