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The Long, Strange Journey of Einstein's Brain .
'Postcards from the Brain Museum' by Brian Burrell
Author :Brian Burrell
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THE BRAIN OF Albert Einstein, taken by Thomas Harvey,pathologist of the Hospital where Einstein breathed his last in April 1955 had an unusual long , strange journey , during the last forty five years and has acquired a notoriety out of all proportion to its value as an anatomical specimen.not because of any motivation for any new theory of brain function nor to any finding of any evidence of scientific value,( as per the account given in Post cards from Brain museum.)
Instead it turned out exactly what Einstein most feared: a pop-culture icon, as it was revealed much later that strict instructions were in fact given to cremate the remains and scatter ashes secretly to discourage idolators.As the permission for autopsy is clouded in mystery, it transpires from subsequent testimony , reluctant retro active nod from Einstein's son had been obtained with a condition that any study conducted should be solely in the interest of science and results published in reputed scientific journals.
Harvey took, not only the brain, but also removed the physicist's eyeballs and gave them to Henry Abrams, Einstein's eye doctor. where they still remain to this day in a safe deposit box in New York City. Harvey lost his job from Princeton Hospital for refusing to surrender his precious specimen. Harvey was not a brain specialist nor did his knowledge extend beyond post mortem diagnosis of disease, atrophy or injury. As he had no knowledge nor the expertise to undertake any study of value he realised he had bittenoff more than he could chew.
it would appear, that at the behest of his mentor ,one Harry Zimmerman(Einstein's personal physician) he had kept it (presuming nobody would know about it ) and probably inspired by Oskar Vogey's study of Lenin's brain and he had a very vague idea of coarchitectonics might yield some light from Einstein's brain similarly .
Harvey subsequently took the brain to a Philadelphia hospital,
where a technician sectioned it into over two hundred blocks
and embedded the pieces . Harvvey gave some of the pieces to Harry Zimmerman, put the remainder in two formalin-filled jars, which he stored in the basement of his house in Princeton.
Occasionally, he would try to interest a brain researcher in his quest, but without success. Instead only reporters showed up and to all of them with inquisitive queries, invariably Harvey would confidently proclaim that he was just one year away from publishing his results, which answer he gave for the next forty years or so.
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Harvey's marriage soon fell apart, He left Princeton in search of work and when his wife threatened to dispose of the brain, he returned to retrieve it and took it with him to the Midwest.where he worked as a medical supervisor in a biological testing lab in Wichita, Kansas, keeping the brain in a cider box stashed under a beer cooler
. Later at Weston, Missouri, practiced medicine while trying to study the brain in his spare time, only to lose his medical license in 1988 after failing a competency exam.He then relocated to Lawrence, Kansas, took an assembly-line job in a plastic-extrusion factory, and befriended a neighbor, the beat poet William Burroughs.
The two routinely met for drinks and . used to tell stories about the brain, about cutting off chunks to send to researchers around the world. .
In the early 1990s, he embarked on a cross-country road trip with a freelance magazine writer named Michael Paterniti. With his help Harvey met Einstein's granddaughter in California as he toyed with the idea of giving her the brain and even left it at her house accidentally but she didn't want it.
,Finally , Harvey ,thereafter returned to seek peace of mind at his girlfriend's house in Princeton , and the brain to end its days at the pathology lab where it had all started its journey some forty=five years earlier
Konthai
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