Roaming the Hill
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C.U. History Through C.U. Brains
November 16, 2007 - 12:00amI was always a big collector when I was younger. Basketball cards, Pokémon cards — you name it. My beloved collections, however, were not as unique as the Wilder Brain Collection housed in Uris Hall. When I visited the brain collection this week, I learned about science, history, Cornell and why my collection of pogs from elementary school was not as cool as I thought it was.
Burt Green Wilder, who became a Cornell professor in neurology and vertebrate zoology at the university’s start in 1868 started collecting brain specimens only a few years later in 1871. According to Prof. Barbara Finlay, psychology, and curator of the collection, it began at a time when collecting parts of the body for research was quite common. Scholars began to look into the connection between the physical form of the brain and differences in people’s personality and mental functioning, Finlay said.
Since its start in the 19th century, the Wilder Brain Collection has gone through a few phases and changes. What was once over 1600 brains is now a group of about 70, only eight of which are displayed on the second floor of Uris Hall, the home of Cornell’s Department of Psychology. The most recent transition that the collection went through was a redesigning of its showcase.
In Oct. 2005, Prof. Thomas Gilovich, psychology, asked Robyn Finkelstein ’06 and Bernadette Acuna ’07, who both have backgrounds in design, to give the collection’s display a complete makeover. The lighting of the previous set-up gave the brains a greenish-yellowish look — they changed the lighting and background color of the display. The pair also elevated the brains so that visitors can look directly into them instead of looking down onto them and made new boards for the biographies of the people who belong to the brains. They also added pictures to go with the descriptions.
“We were very happy with the resulting case and are proud to have contributed to Cornell in such a unique way,” Finkelstein said.
The two designers also mounted scanned copies of the covers of books written by department professors and hung them from the top of the case. The finishing touch was putting text on the glass that reads “Department of Psychology” at the top and “A Selection from the Wilder Brain Collection” at the bottom.
The brains available for viewing in the newly redesigned display case include Jeremiah W. Jenks, who was a chair of the political economy department from 1891 to 1912; Sutherland Simpson, a very popular professor and head of the Department of Physiology in the early 1900s; Simon H. Gage, a student under Wilder; Helen H. Gardner, who conducted research comparing male and female brains; Edward B. Tutchener, whose work established the Department of Psychology as one of the premier research programs in the world; and Theobald Smith, another one of Wilder’s students. As some might expect, Burt Wilder’s own brain is part of the collection. A brain that will ring a bell with Collegetown residents is that of Edward H. Ruloff, the namesake of the Ruloff’s restaurant on College Ave. Ruloff was never affiliated with Cornell, but the brain of a “gentleman, scholar and murderer,” as the biography above his brain reads, still made its way into the collection.
Finlay described a tradition the Department of Psychology once had — they would replace one of the biographies on display with a somewhat humorous, not entirely truthful biography of the current department chairperson. Additionally, she notes that children from local schools have submitted poems about the collection.
One specimen in the Wilder Brain Collection that some might argue does not belong is a piece of the pumpkin that sat atop McGraw Tower in 1997. The pumpkin, placed in a jar in Prof. Finlay’s office, separate from the human brains in the hallway, is displayed along with its biography. Yes, The Cornell Pumpkin, as some call it — or Pepo Cucurbita, its proper name, according to the biography — had an eventful life, worthy of a place in the brain collection.
The Wilder Brain Collection, which was one of the first of its kind, has been a part of the Cornell community since the university’s beginnings in the late 1800s. Its legacy continues to this day, and the collection remains a significant part of the school’s personality; so much so that it even holds its own place on the Sun’s “Big Red Ambition: 161Things Every Cornellian Should Do.” Number 66 — check!