Einstein’s brain was stolen when he died
Written by Sneh Chaudhry on September 28, 2021
Born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany, Albert Einstein left behind an untouchable legacy, from befriending Charlie Chaplin and escaping Nazi Germany to redefining the study of physics.
Respected all over the world for his genius, it was theorized by many in the scientific community that his brain might actually be physically different from the average human mind. So when he died at age 76 of a burst aorta in Princeton Hospital, his brain was immediately removed from his body by Thomas Harvey.
According to Carolyn Abraham, author of Possessing Genius: The Bizarre Odyssey of Einstein’s Brain, Harvey “had some big professional hopes pinned on that brain” and likely figured that the organ might further his career in medicine.
Not only did Harvey steal Albert Einstein’s brain, but he also removed the physicists’ eyes, which he then gave to Einstein’s ophthalmologist.
The rest of Einstein’s body was cremated in Trenton, New Jersey, on April 20, at which time his son, Hans Albert Einstein, learned what Harvey had done. He eventually agreed that the brain could be studied, but only on the condition that those studies be published in scientific journals of high standing.
Harvey insisted that his goal in doing so was purely scientific, and he drove the brain cross-country in an effort to give pieces of it to curious researchers. Even the United States Army received samples from the wily pathologist.
“They felt that having it would put them on a par with the Russians,” said Abrahams, “who were collecting their own brains at the time. People were collecting brains — it was a thing.”
Harvey’s obsession with Albert Einstein’s brain not only cost him his job at Princeton but also his medical license and his marriage.
He moved to Wichita, Kansas where, to the shock of one journalist in 1978, Harvey had been keeping the brain in a cider box beneath a beer cooler. Once word got out, the first study of Einstein’s brain was published in 1985 — with controversial results.
Source: allthatsinteresting.com
