The University of Texas received roughly 200 human brains
taken from “mental patients” during autopsies performed as far back as the
1950’s. They received these brains 28 years ago from a psychiatric care
facility. They were subsequently stored, safe and sound it was thought, in the
basement of the Animal Resources Center. Until this past December, when
officials determined that approximately half the brains in the collection were
missing. This discovery was a potential headache for the university, and caused
much consternation and hand-wringing.
Fortunately,
the mystery of the missing brains has been solved. It turns out that most of
the missing brains had been disposed of by the university’s environmental
health and safety officials back in 2002. Faculty members determined that “the
specimens had been in poor condition when the university received them,
and were not suitable for research or
teaching.”
They
were disposed of in 2002, and the school didn’t discover this until the end of
2014? Is this an inventory or loss-prevention issue, or an example of poor
sleuthing? This is certainly not an exemplar of high-end communication skills.
“The University of Texas: we’ve only lost half our brains!”
Oh
well, who are we to judge? Looking at politics and current events, in the U.S.
and around the world, it seems like a lot of minds have been lost in recent
years.
*****
(Some information used in this post was taken from a
February, 2015 Newsmax magazine article)
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