Last year in Indianapolis, David Charles, 21, was charged with stealing 60 human brains from the Indiana Medical History Museum. The police were tipped off by Brian Kubasco of San Diego, who had bought six of the brains on eBay for $600, and suspected they were stolen. About 48 of the brains were returned to the museum, which is on the grounds of a former state psychiatric hospital. All of the brains were from the autopsies of mental patients over roughly a half-century through the 1940s. “These brain collections go back to the mid-1800s, and it’s not uncommon for their whereabouts to be unclear,” said Brian Burrell, a University of Massachusetts, Amherst, professor and author of “Postcards From the Brain Museum: The Improbable Search for Meaning in the Matter of Famous Minds.” Disposing of such a collection can be awkward, he said, since it may not be possible to give away the brains. Sometimes, he said, an institution does not even know it has them. EBay policy prohibits the sale of human remains, with the exception of hair and skulls, as well as skeletons sold for medical use. But enforcement is not air tight, as evidenced by the Indiana case. While a federal law protecting the burial sites of Native Americans prohibits trade in Indian funeral objects and human remains, it is generally left to the states to regulate the trade of remains. Some extensive collections of brains have simply vanished. “There was one collection of 600 brains, by a Philadelphia anatomist, and no one knows where they are,” Mr. Burrell said. nytimes/2014/12/04/us/university-texas-austin-brains-missing.html?_r=0
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 06:17:44 +0000
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