Why Einstein Brain Is Different And It Is Still Kept In Museum?

Sixty years after the great scientist’s death, his gray matter is on display because Einstein’s brain was different from everyone else.

When Einstein was born, his head was remarkably large compared to other normal kids. At that point, medical science wasn't much developed therefore the reason for the aforementioned big head remains unknown. It is a world-known that Einstein was counted among stupid children in class life. Especially Einstein's teachers didn't like him in the least, because he used to fail in every subject aside from mathematics and science. And even the teacher's scold didn't have any impact on him.

Why Einstein's brain is different?

In the early morning hours of April 18, 1955, Einstein died at Princeton Hospital in New Jersey. Thomas Harvey, the pathologist on duty that night, performed the autopsy and determined that the professor had died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Then Dr. Thomas took his brain apart from his skull without the consent of his family. Despite the hospital's request he didn't return it and kept it for around 20 years.  After twenty years, and with the permission of Hans Prince Albert (Einstein’s son), he started studying over Einstein’s brain.

Harvey kept the brain of one of the world’s greatest minds in a glass jar, sometimes in a cider box under a beer cooler. Harvey dissected the brain into 240 blocks and made 1,000 microscopic slides of the brain tissue. Dr. Harvey sent pieces of the brain to researchers everywhere on the planet.

Dr. Thomas was also fired from the hospital for this madness. But doctors' efforts didn't get wasted. In the same study, a study revealed that two parts of Einstein’s brain contained an unusually large number of non-neuronal cells – called glia – for every neuron or nerve-transmitting cell in the brain. Ten years later, Einstein’s brain was found to lack a furrow normally seen within the Parietal Lobe.

Einstein’s brain weight: 

It's less than the brain of an average adult male, 2.7lbs versus 3 lbs; the inferior parietal region of the brain is 15% larger than in an average brain.

Neuroscientists speculate that these features might account for Einstein’s accumulated mathematical and spatial reasoning skills. Also, Einstein’s brain lacks many chronic changes that will normally be a gift in a 76-year-old.

In which Museum Einstein Brain is kept?

Sixty years later, the only permanent place to see pieces of the brain that changed the world is at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. One of America’s most interesting medical museums, the Mütter contains an incredible assemblage of anatomical specimens, instruments, and medical models.

Brain section, stained with 20 μm thick and cassyle violet, is preserved within the glass slide on display in the main museum gallery.

With over 150,000 curious guests a year, the Mütter Museum’s far-ranging medical exhibits charm to a broad audience, however, few are as popular as Einstein’s brain.