Lenin's Brain
In 1924, Vogt was one of the neurologists asked to consult on Lenin’s illness and was given his brain for histological study after Lenin’s death. Lenin's brain showed a great number of "giant cells", which Vogt saw as a sign of superior mental function. "The giant cells" were cortical pyramidal cells of unusual size. There were also particularities in layer 3.
In 1925 Vogt accepted an invitation to Moscow where he was assigned the establishment of an institute for brain research under the auspices of the health ministry in Moscow. In 1945 Lenin's brain was still in the Institute of Berlin. According to claims of two Belgians, L. Van Bogaert and A. Dewulf, the Soviets carried out a military operation specifically to retrieve the brain before the Americans obtained it, and succeeded in doing so. It was, for a time, put on display in the Lenin Mausoleum. The brain is now at Moscow's Institute.
Read more about this topic: Oskar Vogt
Famous quotes containing the words lenin and/or brain:
“The savages set up gods to which they pray, and which they punish if one of their prayers is not answered.... That is what is happening at this moment.... Yesterday Kerensky; today Lenin and Trotsky; another tomorrow.”
—Victor Mikhailovich Chernov (1873–1972)
“They tend to be suspicious, bristly, paranoid-type people with huge egos they push around like some elephantiasis victim with his distended testicles in a wheelbarrow terrified no doubt that some skulking ingrate of a clone student will sneak into his very brain and steal his genius work.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)