Possessing Genius: The Bizarre Odyssey of Einstein's Brain

John H. Gryfe is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon practising in
Toronto.

Spanning half a century, Possessing Genius recounts the unremittingly
bizarre history of Albert Einstein’s brain and the self-appointed
group who tried to control its scientific scrutiny. Ironically, this
collection of personalities became far more enigmatic than the secrets
within the anatomic specimen they so aggressively shielded from the
media. They included Helen Dukas, the loyal assistant whose supportive
association lasted longer than either of Einstein’s two wives, and
Otto Nathan, the retired economist, longtime friend, and designated
executor of the estate, who maintained an impenetrable wall around
Einstein’s personal life and forestalled publication of the genius’s
personal papers for 30 years.

The doggedness of Dukas and Nathan, however, was mere dedication when
measured against the postmortem activities of Thomas Harvey, the elusive
and improbably motivated pathologist who performed Einstein’s autopsy
and became the self-styled supervisor of subsequent research on the
Nobel Prize winner’s brain, although he had neither the training nor
the aptitude for the neural research demanded by the scientific
community and the ever-inquisitive media. Even his acquisition of the
brain, as described in Abraham’s fascinating account, was shrouded in
misunderstanding and political manipulation.