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Philadelphia's Mütter Museum Gets Part of Einstein's Brain

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Mütter Museum, known throughout the world for its unusual collection of medical artifacts, today received another -- a portion of Albert Einstein's brain.

The announcement came on CBS3 TV's "Talk Philly" program from Robert Hicks, director of the Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library.

"Albert Einstein. We have a portion of his brain in this box, and it's being given to us by Dr. Lucy Rorke-Adams from Children's Hospital," Hicks said today.

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Rorke-Adams is a neuropathologist, and has studied the brains of young, middle-aged, and old people.

"Einstein's brain is that of a young person -- it is really remarkable," Dr. Rorke-Adams notes. "It does not show any of the changes that we associate with age."

Rorke-Adams received the slides -- thin slices of Einstein's brain -- from Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey, who performed an autopsy on Einstein just hours after his death, in 1955. He was later fired from Princeton Hospital for failing to surrender the brain and Einstein's eyes.

Now, visitors to the Mütter Museum, at 22nd and Market Streets in center city Philadelphia, will have a chance to see for themselves what has been described as one of the 20th century's greatest brains.

Reported by Kim Glovas, KYW Newsradio 1060

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