The story of Albert Einstein’s brain is a bizarre and fascinating tale that stretches from a Princeton hospital in 1955 to secret storage in basements and car trunks. It’s a story of ambition, scientific curiosity, and the peculiar afterlife of a genius’s physical remains.
After Einstein’s death in 1955, his body was to be cremated and his ashes scattered secretly. However, during the autopsy at Princeton Hospital, Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey, the chief pathologist, took it upon himself to remove the brain. This wasn’t a case of careful preservation for scientific study; it was a theft. Harvey hoped that by studying the brain, he would unlock the secrets of Einstein’s genius and become a scientific hero.
Harvey’s actions were not sanctioned, and he kept the brain without permission. Einstein’s family demanded the return of the brain. Instead of returning it, Harvey struck a deal with Einstein’s estate, vowing to safeguard it from publicity and souvenir hunters, and use it only for scientific research. The estate gave Harvey permission to keep it under those conditions.
Harvey preserved the brain in celloidin, a hard, rubbery form of cellulose, and cut it into 240 pieces. He created 12 sets of 200 slides. He had the ambitious goal of identifying biological differences between Einstein’s brain and the brains of others. However, 1950s brain science was not advanced enough to analyse the brain successfully.
Instead of bringing him scholarly fame, the brain led to Harvey’s personal and professional undoing. He lost his job at Princeton, his medical license, and went through three failed marriages. For 40 years, Harvey drifted, taking the brain with him, hiding it in basements, car trunks, and even in a cider box under a beer cooler. He kept some of the brain in mayonnaise jars. He even took it with him when he worked as a medical supervisor in Wichita, Kansas. Harvey also showed off jars of the brain to fellow Quakers and co-workers. He even gave pieces to professors he liked.
Despite the fact he spent years hiding the brain, Harvey faced constant pressure from Einstein’s estate and the media. He refused media requests from all over the world. By the time he was in his 80s, Harvey was working night shifts at a plastics factory and living in a cramped apartment with a university student, with Einstein’s brain still tucked away in a closet.
Near the end of his life, Harvey finally relinquished the brain. He passed it on to another Princeton physician, known only as Dr. X, who has now been hiding it for over 20 years. Dr X is now deciding where the brain should go next.
Today, 170 blocks of the brain are kept under lock and key at the University Medical Center of Princeton. The story of Einstein’s stolen brain highlights the human fascination with genius and the consequences of ambition.
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