9 Chapter 8 A Final Thought

Chapter 8 A Final Thought Albert left these instructions upon his death: donate my brain to science, cremate my body, and throw the ashes in some secret place. This was done. So where is Albert's brain now? After Albert died, an autopsy was done on his body. In the process, the doctor, Thomas Harvey, removed Albert's brain studied it, decided that there was nothing all that special about it, and set it aside in a bottle of formaldehyde.

Later, when Dr. Harvey moved to Wichita, Kansas, he took the brain with him. He kept the brain, which was in pieces, in two jars inside a cardboard box labeled "Cider." Since then, further studies by several medical researchers have found Albert's brain to be a bit more interesting than Dr. Harvey did. (Dr. Harvey provided the researchers with pieces of the brain.) Albert's brain weighed less than the average brain, was 15 percent wider, and had an unusual set of grooves. Yet the importrance of these differences remains unknown. Harvey kept the brain with him for over forty years. One time, Harvey and Michael Paterniti, an author, put the brain in the trunk of a car and drove it all the way to California so that a piece of it could be given to Albert's granddaughter, Evelyn. Soon after that trip, Harvey turned the brain over to a Princeton hospital where it continues to float around in a jar. You have to wonder what Albert would think of that!

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Albert Einstein 1879–1955