Researchers who always marvelled at what Albert Einstein was able to do with his brain can now have their own look under the hood: a new iPad application shows slides of his fabled grey matter.
The pathologist who per-formed the autopsy on Einstein at a Princeton, New Jersey, hospital after he died of an aneurism in 1955 removed his brain for study.
The pathologist, Thomas Harvey, segmented Einstein’s brain into about 170 parts, roughly grouped by the lobes and brainstem. He then sectioned those parts into hundreds of microscope sections. The sections were mounted on microscope slides and stained to highlight cellular structure and nerve conductive tissue.
Harvey’s estate donated the collection to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in 2010.
This spring, the National Museum of Health and Medicine Chicago (NMHM Chicago) obtained private funding to begin digitising the collection.
Now, the slides that have been digitised so far are available on the new app.