garyh@iddic.UUCP (Gary Hanson) (09/01/85)
<Sweetbreads for the line eater. It didn't like them I guess.>
<reprinted from an old newspaper article without permission.>
In an office in Wichita, Kansas, in a cardboard box stashed unobtrusively
in a corner, in a canning jar nestled among rumpled newspapers floats the
brain of Albert Einstein.
Like a grade B Hollywood thriller come true, the bizarre fate of the brain
was disclosed Wednesday, from its removal after Einstein's death in 1955 to
its 23 years of dissection and scrutiny by scientists seeking the biological
basis of genius.
"Yes, it's true we're studying it," Dr. Thomas Harvey, who has custody
of the precious gray matter said. "We're comparing it to normal, looking for
any differences we can find.
The brain -- or what's left of it -- of the man who changed our concept
of the universe was tracked to Wichita by Steven Levy, reporter for the New
Jersey Monthly, who cronicled his hunt in the magazine's August issue.
But followup efforts ran into a scientific stonewall.
"The only thing I can say is that it's a study that the Einstein estate
wants done, and that it also wants kept in the scientific literature rather
than in the lay press," Dr. Harvey said.
Dr. Hartwig Kuhlenbeck, a consultant from the early stages of the project,
was no more helpful. "It is strictly science and it has to remain in the
scientific circle," he said when reached in Philadelphia.
Harvey said that the research team was "close" to winding up the study,
conducted intermittently over the years, but he did not specify when or
where it would be published. He told Levy it might be next year, the
centennial of Einstein's birth.
Einstein, known mainly for his theory of relativity, died in Princeton (NJ)
Hospital of an aneurysm on April 17, 1955. He was 76. His brain was removed
and studies began under the auspices of Harvey, the Hospital pathologist
who presided over the autopsy.
What happened to the 2.64-pound brain remained a mystery for 23 years.
But Levy said Harvey told him how he packed the brain in a jar filled with
formaldehyde and drove it -- "very, very carefully" -- to Philadelphia
where it was sectioned at the University of Pennsylvania.
It took six months and the specimens were sent to various researchers
across the country. Harvey moved in 1975 to Wichita where Levy found him
working as a medical supervisor in a bio-testing lab.
Levy described how Harvey reluctantly decided to let him take a look at
the unsectioned "gross material" of Einsteins brain, kept in a jar placed in a
carton with the logo Costa Cider on the side.
"Floating in the jar, in a clear liquid solution...several pieces of
matter. A conch shell-shaped mass of wrinkly material the color of clay after
kiln firing. A fist-sized chunk of grayish, lined substance, the apparent
consistency of sponge. And in a separate pouch, a mass of pinkish-white
string resembling bloated dental floss. All of the material was recognizably
brain matter."
It was enough to send any person into raptures about the mysteries of the
universe and the miracle of human achievement, Levy said. But scientist
Harvey is less poetic.
Asked whether years of studying Einstein's brain have turned up any
differences from the ordinary run of mankind, Levy quotes Harvey as saying:
"So far, it's fallen within the normal limits for a man his age."
-- Gary Hanson Tektronix IDG {the world}!tektronix!iddic!garyh
<How about considering the horseshoe crab for the title of Official Net.bizarre
Animal. Anyone who's ever seen one knows that they are one of the most
bizarre and pointless lifeforms on the planet. Yet they have survived
virtually unchanged for over a million years, even before Raquel Welch
cavorted in the first fur bikini. Imagine, the formerly lowly horseshoe crab
accepting all the honor and glory of the title of Official Net.bizarre Animal,
not to mention all the income from endorsements and commercials. You could
make it happen. Give today. Thank-you.>