Wellcome Collection : Brains

Brains: The mind as matter

29 March – 17 June 2012

Wellcome Collection

wellcomecollection.org

“Our major new free exhibition seeks to explore what humans have done to brains in the name of medical intervention, scientific enquiry, cultural meaning and technological change.

Featuring over 150 artefacts including real brains, artworks, manuscripts, artefacts, videos and photography, ‘Brains’ follows the long quest to manipulate and decipher the most unique and mysterious of human organs, whose secrets continue to confound and inspire.

‘Brains’ asks not what brains do to us, but what we have done to brains, focusing on the bodily presence of the organ rather than investigating the neuroscience of the mind”

Phrenological head (Victoire) - Plaster model (copy), c. 1825

This is a plaster copy of a cast from the head of a 24-year-old woman named Victoire, described as an idiot and suffering from microcephaly, a rare genetic condition that restricts brain development. It came from the collection of the British Phrenological Society, which also included plaster casts of the heads of eminent persons and the skulls of other primates for comparison. Phrenology was controversial and dismissed by many as pseudo-science, but the British Phrenological Society survived until 1967.*

The Anatomy of the Brain - Watercolour in book, Charles Bell, 1823

Distinguished British anatomist and surgeon Sir Charles Bell (1774–1842) published the first edition of ‘The Anatomy of the Brain’ in 1802. Bell undertook significant work on the localisation of brain function in the cerebrum (the largest portion of the brain, consisting of folded bulges called gyri) and the cerebellum. This plate shows the “general anatomy and subdivisions of the brain” and membranes, veins and arteries covering it. The pose of the head shows the usual method of positioning it for dissection at the time.*

Pre-operative photograph of female patient with craniopharyngioma - Black-and-white photograph, 1919

Many of the patients in these photographs presented with much more advanced tumours than would normally go unchecked today. The 15-year-old subject of this photograph suffered years of headaches, nausea, convulsions, restricted development and impaired vision before being referred to the famous brain surgeon, Dr Harvey Cushing. She was in and out of hospital for the next 12 years, although the final letter in her file, from her father in 1931, strikes an optimistic note and thanks Cushing for his care.*

Examination of the skull and brain: method of removing the brain after it is severed from the body - Henry W. Cattell, 1903

The brain is notoriously difficult to access and a set of careful procedures are required to remove its protective layers of skin and bone to facilitate removal after death. This delicate process marks the transitional moment between the brain as ‘self’ and the brain as an object of study, when it usually becomes physically disconnected from the spine and is completely exposed. This photograph was made for a textbook on post-mortems.*