A paper in a 1909 edition of the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London
described the dissection of Charles Babbage's brain. The whole article
is on the Internet Archive, from which the Public Domain Review has
plucked it.
Babbage himself decided that he wanted his brain to be donated to
science upon his death. In a letter accompanying the donation, his son
Henry wrote:
I have no objection…to the idea of preserving the brain…Please
therefore do what you consider best…[T]he brain should be known as his,
and disposed of in any manner which you consider most conducive to the
advancement of human knowledge and the good of the human race.
Half of Babbage’s brain is preserved at the Hunterian Museum in the
Royal College of Surgeons in London, the other half is on display in the
Science Museum in London.
The Brain of Charles Babbage (1909)
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