Eye-popping end of Einstein
QUESTION Why are Albert Einstein’s eyeballs in a safety deposit box in New York? What happened to the rest of him? The strange events surrounding parts of einstein’s anatomy began on the evening of April 17, 1955, when the 76-year- old physicist was admitted to Princeton hospital complaining of chest pains. he died early the next morning of a burst aortic aneurysm.
Thomas harvey, the pathologist on call, claimed he’d been granted permission to perform an autopsy and to extract the scientist’s brain. But it turned out later that no such permission had been granted nor did he have a legal right to keep the brain for himself.
When this fact came to light a few days later, harvey managed to solicit a reluctant and retroactive blessing from einstein’s son, hans Albert, with the stipulation that the study of the brain be conducted solely in the interest of science and that any results would be published in reputable scientific journals. But einstein’s dignity had already been compromised.
he had left behind specific instructions regarding his remains: cremation with his ashes to be scattered secretly to discourage idolaters. Yet not only did harvey take the brain, he also removed the physicist’s eyeballs and gave them to henry Abrams, einstein’s physician.
Within months of the autopsy, harvey was dismissed from Princeton hospital for refusing to surrender his precious specimen. For decades, he kept the brain of one of the world’s greatest minds in a glass jar, sometimes in a cider box under a beer cooler.
Dr harvey dissected the brain into 240 blocks, made 1,000 microscopic slides of the brain tissue and sent pieces to researchers all over the world.
he eventually donated the remainder of einstein’s brain to the pathology department at Princeton hospital. Today, some of these slides can be viewed at the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians in Philadelphia.
einstein’s eyes remain in the possession of Abrams, though periodically they are rumoured to be up for imminent auction.
According to Abrams, in a 2011 interview: ‘Albert einstein was a very important part of my life — a lasting influence. having his eyes means the professor’s life has not ended. A part of him is still with me.’
As for the remainder of einstein’s body, it was moved briefly to a funeral home,
QUESTIONS Q : Is a ‘culprit’ not necessarily the guilty party?
Mathew Simon, Painswick, Glos. Q : Were there high tides on the coast of Lincolnshire in 1281, 1571, 1810 and 1953?
Graham Endicott, Morecambe, Lancs. Q : Did the Iranian women who took part in the 1979 mass demonstration against the hijab law in Tehran suffer any reprisals?
Mrs Charlotte James, Bath, Somerset. then to a crematorium in Trenton, new Jersey, for a short service and cremation. his ashes were scattered later in the grounds of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study.
T. L. Shott, Cardiff. QUESTION What is the legality of ‘no change given’ rules on public transport when you are offering, say, a legal tender £20 note for a £3 fare? LegAL tender is that which must be accepted when tendered for goods and services. Most people are aware there are limits on the number of coins acceptable in various denominations (for instance, 1ps and 2ps are legal tender only up to the value of 20p, though you can pay more in pennies if the business you’re paying agrees).
The rules also state that the amount tendered must be the same as the price, meaning there is no legal obligation to offer or provide change.
If you offered a £20 note in a shop for your £5.65 groceries, staff would have no legal obligation to give you any change.
Most bus companies have an unpaid fare procedure whereby a passenger who offers a note larger than the driver/conductor can change may be given back the note at the end of their journey on condition they give their name and address, and agree to pay the fare within a specified date. The driver can ask for proof that the name and address are genuine.
A similar scheme operates when children are unable to pay their fare, but this applies only to getting them to school or to their home. It doesn’t entitle them to go out socialising or shopping.
Brendan Coy, London. QUESTION Why are milk churns so called when milk isn’t churned in them? MILk was originally distributed in pails, lidded buckets with handles, hence the classic pastoral image of a farmer’s wife (milkmaid) carrying two on either end of a wooden yoke. Customers would bring out their milk jugs and the vendor would use a ladle to dispense the milk.
once the railways started distributing milk, it was clear the pail was too unstable to be used. Farmers used a tall conical wooden container to churn the milk to make butter; this was made up of staves bound with metal hoops and proved a better transport option.
It held a lot more milk (about 17 gallons) and its conical shape made it less likely to spill or fall over. These wooden churns were intrinsically heavy, however, and from the 1850s a ten-gallon steel version was introduced from the U.S. and soon became the standard.
The name churn was retained, though they were not used for making butter.
Milk churns were heavy so the normal practice was to tilt them on one side and roll them along.
Karen Ingham, Nuneaton, Warks. QUESTION Roy Keane recently caused a stir by saying if ‘Ashley Young is a Man United player, I’m a Chinaman’. My dad used this phrase. What other phrases have gone out of fashion? FUrTher to earlier answers, my late mother-in-law nora Madden, Barnsley born and bred, would be ‘sat like rock’ and ‘dizzy as a boat horse’.
Margaret Madden, Colchester, Essex. MY MoTher-In-LAW used to say: ‘I am so hungry I could eat a horse and chase the rider.’
robert Jones, St Annes-on-Sea, Lancs. A CorreSPonDenT replied that his mother used to say when it was bedtime: ‘Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.’ My mother used to say the same and add ‘and down Sheet Lane’.
Jen Birch, Barnack, Stamford, Lincs. When I was a child, bedtime was a trip ‘up Wooden hill, down Blanket Lane, to have a game of shut-ey’.
E. W. Corcoran, Newark, Notts. MY MoTher-In-LAW used to say: ‘oh, my giddy aunt.’
If you happened to be very hungry, you may have said: ‘I could eat a horse between two mattresses.’
Another saying (if your clothes were old) was that they were ‘from the ark’.
Something you liked would be ‘just my cup of tea’ and if there was something that someone else liked, you could have said to them: ‘It is right up your street.’
Sue Varcoe, Cheddar, Somerset.
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