Brian Burrell Reading: Postcards from the Brain Museum
Mathematics lecturer Brian Burrell will read from his new book, Postcards from the Brain Museum.
Postcards, a history of attempts to locate the anatomy of genius and criminality in preserved brains, has received many favorable reviews, including pieces in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
The book is a tale of colorful eccentrics bent on laying bare the secrets of the human mind. It not only recovers this lost chapter in the history of science but sheds fascinating light on the struggles of anatomy and forensic medicine to establish themselves as independent disciplines.
Burrell chronicles what he calls “the golden age of brain collecting,” from 1880 to 1910, when hundreds of men and women joined autopsy societies and donated their brains for study, a craze prompted by Walt Whitman, who had his head read in 1849 and later donated his brain to the American Anthropometric Society.
In his book, Burrell visits collections of these donated brains in locations such as Paris, Philadelphia and Moscow, only to find dried brains in glass jars, unearthing the doomed efforts of scientists who once thought brains, when examined, would display distinctive physical characteristics. Their theory collapsed when faced with conflicting evidence—some geniuses had small brains, while criminals showed the same contours as scientists and artists.
Burrell is also the author of Damn the Torpedoes: Fighting Words, Rallying Cries, and the Hidden History of Warfare. He has appeared on C-SPAN’s “Booknotes with Brian Lamb” and the “Today” show. He lives in Northampton, Mass.
