Einstien's Brain

I just finished a paper for my seminar. It is on creativity and how the brain functions. Here is the opening of the paper. It is an unforgettable and true story.

When Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955 he was one of the most celebrated and respected men in the world. His scientific genius was recognized as extraordinary. Dubbed the greatest scientist of the 20^th Century, he was listed among the most influential people in the history of the world.[1] Time Magazine, on the eve of the new millennium, named him the most influential person of the century.[2] After his death, the body of Einstein was moved to the morgue of Princeton Hospital and Thomas Harvey, the pathologist on call that evening performed the autopsy. From that moment forward, the odyssey of Einstein’s brain would take a series of twists and turns that would not resolve themselves for more than four decades.

Harvey performed a routine autopsy that night, though without apparent cause or a request from the family (though permission was obtained after the autopsy was completed). Einstein had left specific instructions for the disposal of his remains. They were to be cremated and the ashes spread anonymously to discourage thrill seekers and souvenir hunters. Harvey, either unaware of these wishes or caught up in the emotion of the moment (or both), removed the eyes and gave them to Henry Abrams, Einstein’s eye doctor. But the strangest act that night was what happened to the brain. Harvey, apparently at the request of his mentor and Einstein’s personal physician Dr. Harry Zimmer, removed the brain from the skull and took it home. Harvey was not a neurologist nor did he have any training in the brain other than the normal pathological understandings related to postmortem disease, injury or atrophy. He took the brain for reasons that can only be speculated. Once the loss was discovered, Harvey refused to return Einstein’s brain to the pathology department. He was fired from his job as a pathologist. Not long after, he took the brain to Philadelphia where a technician sectioned it off into hundreds of blocks for study. Encased in celloidin (a substance used to embed tissues for microscopic examination) the brain was placed in a plastic container and Harvey took it home and put it in his house. It would remain there for the next 40 years.[3]

Periodically, Harvey would take out the brain to cut off a slice for some scientist who was requesting research material. He tried, unsuccessfully, to interest the larger scientific community in researching the nature of his prized possession. Finally, at the age of 80, Harvey packed up Einstein’s brain and put it in the trunk of his Buick Skylark. Accompanied by a writer named Michael Peterniti, they took off across the country to return what was left of the prized brain to its rightful heir, Einstein’s granddaughter. After traveling all the way to California, she refused to take possession of the gruesome artifact. In the end, the brain was finally returned to where this whole bizarre story began – to the pathologist at Princeton that held the same job Harvey had when he first took the brain some four decades earlier.[4]

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[1] Michael H. Hart, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History (New York: Hart Pub. Co., 1978).

[2] Frederic Golden, "Person of the Century: Albert Einstein," Time Magazine 2000.

[3] Brian Burrell, Postcards from the Brain Museum: The Improbable Search for Meaning in the Matter of Famous Minds, 1st ed. (New York: Broadway Books, 2004).

[4] Michael Paterniti, Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip across America with Einstein's Brain (New York: Dial Press, 2000).