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All the United States New York State New York City Ithaca Wilder Brain Collection
AO Edited

Wilder Brain Collection

This collection started by a Cornell professor once held more than 600 human brain specimens, including the one that belonged to its founder.

Ithaca, New York

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Brain of Helen Hamilton Gardener   Kenneth C. Zirkel/CC BY-SA 4.0
Brain of Helen Hamilton Gardener   Kenneth C. Zirkel/CC BY-SA 4.0
Helen Hamilton Gardener and her brain   Wellcome Images/CC BY-SA 4.0
Edward Bradford Titchener’s Brain   adrsudios/Flickr
Wilder Brain Collection   loxosceles/Flickr
Brain of Edward Howard Rulloff   Misa Grannis/Flickr
1950s photo of Wilder Brain Collection   hastingsgraham/Flickr
Uris Hall, where the Wilder Brain Collection is held   Upsilon Andromedae/CC BY 2.0
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About

The whole human brain collection held at New York's Cornell University was accumulated at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th by Dr. Burt Green Wilder.

Wilder was a Civil War surgeon who became Cornell's first animal biologist and founded the school's anatomy department. In 1889 he founded the Cornell Brain Society with the goal of gathering and studying the human brain. Wilder wanted to see if he could detect any differences between the brains of "educated and orderly persons" and women, murderers, racial minorities, and those with mental illnesses.

The collection once held more than 600 human brain specimens—perhaps as many as 1,200 if you include partial brain samples and animal brains. But due to years of neglect and their poor storage in the university basement, many of the specimens deteriorated and had to be carried out of the basement in buckets. Despite this, an effort was made to retain the most interesting brains and today the collection still contains some 70 whole human brains.

Special emphasis was made to acquire the brains of famous people. The collection includes suffragist Helen Hamilton Gardener, who donated her brain in 1925 to prove that woman's brain was in no way inferior to a man's, and the gray matter (or in this case, due to some discoloration, green matter) of Edward Howard Rulloff, a convicted murderer who was hanged in 1871.

Wilder himself donated his brain upon his death. Today Cornell University's department of psychology maintains the collection. Eight brains, including the above-mentioned, are on display in Uris Hall. The other 62 are still kept in the basement.

Related Tags

Brain Collections Medical Museums Mental Health Brain Anatomy

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If you enter through the North entrance, you can go one floor up the stairs or elevator, and you will see it.

Community Contributors

Edited By

ctr287, mbison, Michelle Cassidy

  • ctr287
  • mbison
  • Michelle Cassidy

Published

September 19, 2009

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Sources
  • https://ithacating.com/2014/12/27/the-brains-of-uris-hall/
  • http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2006/05/two-students-upgrade-showcase-wilder-brain-collection
  • http://www.news.cornell.edu/STORIES/MAY06/WILDER.BRAINS.SSL.HTML
  • https://www.ithacaweek-ic.com/ithacas-most-morbid-treasure-the-brain-collection-of-uris-hall/
  • https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2006/05/two-students-upgrade-showcase-wilder-brain-collection
Wilder Brain Collection
Uris Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York, 14853
United States
42.447262, -76.482272
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