Albert Einstein’s brain was stolen by a doctor and carried around for 40 years
Albert Einstein’s death in 1955 set off an extraordinary and ethically fraught afterlife for his brain, secretly removed by a hospital pathologist and kept for decades. Intended as a scientific quest, the episode instead became a prolonged saga of disputed consent, questionable research, and a specimen that wandered far from Einstein’s own wishes before finally reaching museums.
Albert Einstein’s death in 1955 set off an extraordinary and ethically fraught afterlife for his brain, secretly removed by a hospital pathologist and kept for decades. Intended as a scientific quest, the episode instead became a prolonged saga of disputed consent, questionable research, and a specimen that wandered far from Einstein’s own wishes before finally reaching museums.
