Call it the case of the missing brains of Texas.
The University of Texas at Austin has started an investigation into the disappearance of 100 jars of brains preserved in formaldehyde - probably including that of Charles Whitman, the clock tower sniper whose 1966 rampage terrorized the campus and killed 16 people.
'We are investigating the situation surrounding the collection, to determine the whereabouts of these specimens,' said Gary Susswein, a spokesman for the university.
The missing brains, which made up about half of the university's collection, were transferred to the university from the Austin State Hospital about 28 years ago, a coup for the state at a time when several other research universities were also seeking to the specimens, including Harvard, which wanted more brains from schizophrenics for its collection.
The brains, harvested in autopsies from as far back as the 1950s, were in heavy glass jars, each carrying an identification label, a diagnosis and the date of death, according to Alex Hannaford, author of a new book, ' Malformed: Forgotten Brains of the Texas State Mental Hospital.'
Sometime in the early 1990s, when space in the university labs became tight, the curator of the collection asked that half of the brains be removed. They were moved to the basement of the university's Animal Resource Center.
About the only thing the university knows is that they are no longer there. What happened to them - and when - remains unclear, although many of those familiar with the case say it seems likely that the brains disappeared decades ago.
Early Wednesday afternoon, there were reports that the brains had been found at the Health Science Center at the University of Texas, San Antonio. Catherine Duncan, a spokeswoman there, said however that the doctor who created the center's brain bank had reported that it did not have the Austin collection. Ms. Duncan said the center was now checking to whether brains might be elsewhere.
Some have also speculated that the missing specimens somehow made their way to Harvard.
'I know that there are no schizophrenic brains in the collection now,' said Adam Voorhes, who photographed the remaining brain collection over several years, and whose work appears in Mr. Hannaford's book.
Another possibility is that the brains, which are useful for research and teaching, have been destroyed.
Mr. Hannaford said that his repeated queries to the curators of the collection for information about what may have become of the 100 missing brains had yielded no definitive answers.
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, December 3, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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