Samples of Einstein’s brain come to Mütter Museum

More than five decades after the brain of Albert Einstein was carefully preserved, partitioned and distributed to the private collections of various hospitals and researchers, a set of the precious samples is now on public display.

On Thursday, Lucy Rorke-Adams, a neuropathologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, donated 46 slides containing Einstein's gray matter to the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

A colleague gave the slides to Rorke-Adams in the mid-1970s, having received them from the widow of a physician who had helped arrange for the brain samples to be prepared in 1955.

Rorke-Adams, 82, continues to work at Children's Hospital after 47 years but said she wanted to make sure the slides were safely in a museum before she dies.

"They are a very important part of medical history," the physician said.

Several sets of slides were prepared, but Rorke-Adams said the whereabouts of the others was unknown. The bulk of the brain remains preserved at University Medical Center at Princeton, where the autopsy was peformed.

Over the years, researchers have tried to discern evidence of Einstein's genius in the folds and crevices of his brain. Rorke-Adams said she did not put much store in most of the conclusions that have been drawn.

She did allow, however, that Einstein's brain looked very youthful for a 76-year-old.

"The blood vessels are gorgeous," she said.

The autopsy was performed by a physician named Thomas Harvey. By numerous acccounts, he removed the brain without permission, but later obtained the family's approval to conduct scientific study.