POSSESSING GENIUS

Canadian medical journalist Abraham debuts with this well-detailed chronicle clarifying what happened to Einstein’s brain after his death.

Abraham conducted numerous interviews with Dr. Thomas Harvey, the Princeton Hospital pathologist who, in 1955, autopsied Einstein, removed and preserved his brain, and held on to it for some 40 years. Others whose recollections, articles, and letters form the basis for her account include Einstein’s executor, Otto Nathan, who for more than 30 years corresponded with Harvey, urging him to get on with the promised scientific research; and Einstein’s adopted granddaughter Evelyn, who hoped that the brain’s DNA might finally reveal whether she was actually the great man’s daughter. The author begins with a description of the brain’s prenatal development and includes enough about Einstein’s work to explain to anyone, no matter how scientifically challenged, why his name has become synonymous with “genius.” She describes his death, the autopsy, Harvey’s preservation techniques, and the pathologist’s inept efforts to interest qualified neurologists in examining the specimen for biological differences that would explain Einstein’s superior intelligence. Most never responded, and over the next 30 years, no scientific studies were published. A man clearly out of his depth, Harvey guarded his possession zealously and jealously, keeping it with him in jars of alcohol as he moved about the country. Finally, in 1984, he mailed four chunks to a researcher who reported in Experimental Neurology the presence of an unusually large number of glial cells in the left parietal lobe, and in 1996, he delivered 14 pieces to a Canadian researcher, whose subsequent report in The Lancet of the parietal lobes’ exceptional size and shape brought media attention to the researcher and to the brain’s quirky curator.

If Michael Paterniti’s Driving Mr. Albert (2000) whetted the appetite, Possessing Genius provides a satisfying feast, exploring the mystery of Harvey’s behavior, revealing the motives and roles of others in the strange saga, and illuminating changes in the field of brain research in the past half century.