#24: Albert Einstein’s Brain

Albert Einstein is known as one of the greatest minds in human history. Naturally, other scientists and researchers have been fascinated by his brain for decades. We mean that quite literally. When Einstein died in 1955, Dr. Thomas Harvey conducted an autopsy and decided to remove the physicist’s brain for further study. Dr. Harvey initially did this without permission from Einstein’s family. 

Dr. Harvey believed that genius could be physically found in someone’s brain. He was curious how Einstein’s brain differed from other people’s, so he cut some samples for slides before giving the brain back to the family. Although studies have found that Einstein’s brain contained more glial cells than the average person’s, there’s no way to know for sure if this is what made him a genius. Today, portions of Einstein’s brain are housed at the Mütter Medical Museum in Philadelphia.