Between 1930 and 1989, the Department of Neuroanatomy and Anatomical Pathology of the Municipal Neurological Institute in Barcelona, Spain, directed by Eduardo Pons Tortellà (1906-1989), housed a neurological tissue bank, known as the ‘brain library’. It included over 1250 perfectly preserved pathological tissue samples and autopsied brains which had been photographed, classified, and stored.
The number and variety of the samples made for a priceless collection which unfortunately was destroyed in the early 1990s. Only a few slide boxes were saved, containing some 600 slides of great scientific and educational value. The Spanish Society of Neurology's Museo Archivo Histórico was recently granted access to these slides.
This project was accomplished thanks to the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies - FENS Funding for European Neuroscience History Projects in 2016
The project “Neurosciences and History in Images” will entail digitising the SEN’s audio-visual archive and publishing it online. The purpose of the project is to present historical developments in the neurosciences since the late 19th century read more