In 1985, a collection of about 200 brains from mental asylum patients was put into a closet at the University of Texas in Austin. There, they sat for a quarter century until photographer Adam Voorhes found out about them in 2011.
Texas State Lunatic Asylum, like other American institutions in the 20th century, was meant to be an escape from the inhumane mental hospitals of the previous era. It devolved into overcrowding and experimental treatments, and its records went missing, leaving only the labels on the jars to identify the patient remains. The specimens were amassed between 1952 and 1983 by the asylum's pathologist Dr. Coleman de Chenar under vague legality for mental health research. Their stark descriptions just give the patient number, disease, and date of death: "Down's syndrome, 02/10/83"; "Hydrocephalus internus, Ex: February 10, 1960."
Voorhes took pictures of the remaining brains, and collaborated with journalist Alex Hannaford to tell the story of those brains in the book Malformed: Forgotten Brains of the Texas State Mental Hospital. Even all these years later, some of the brains look perfectly normal; others are oddly-shaped, show scars, or are missing the familiar features of a normal brain. Efforts are underway to scan the brains for a medical research. The university is also looking into why many of the brains are missing from the collection. You can find an overview of the brain collection’s story and more pictures from the book at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Adam Voorhes/Powerhouse Books)