Tales of the Brain in Old Time Radio

One of the most fascinating and complex creations in all of nature is the human brain. The most complex computers in Silicon Valley are mere shadows of the incredible sophistication of the brain. Physicians have realized for centuries that the conscious actions of the body, walking, talking, reaching out to touch a loved one's face, as well as the unconscious actions like digestion and respiration,  are controlled by the brain. The brain has the power to comprehend and even create beauty, and the ability to express it through art and language. The brain is where all our memories are stored, yet it has an almost limitless capacity to learn new things.

Medical science is constantly learning new things about the brain, but science also realizes that it has barely scratched the surface of all there is to know and learn about this marvelous organ. It is the capacity of our marvelous brains which has lifted mankind above the other animals which inhabit our world, and it is also what gives us the ability to appreciate the other creatures in the world. To be sure, our knowledge of the brain and how it works has grown exponentially over the past half-century or so, but in many ways, we are not much further along than we were during Radio's Golden Age.

• Encore Theatre presents a retelling of "Dark Victory", the 1939 Bette Davis film about a society girl with a brain tumor and the brilliant doctor who tries to save her.
• The miraculous but delicate science of brain surgery is the theme again in Exploring the Unknown's "Dark Curtain" featuring Veronica Lake descending into madness.
• Exploring Tomorrow explores a fictional concept called "The Happiness Effect". Whenever a person's thoughts become too negative, their minds change everything to happy thoughts thanks to the efforts of 'brain writers'.
• When the Communists take over Warsaw, a bookstore owner fears for the fate of his children who are being brainwashed at the mandatory youth meetings. The only answer seems to be an escape to freedom in Sweden in the presentation of "Two Tickets to Stockholm".
• The eternal battle between brain and brawn is explored in "The Slide Rule Says Pass" when the beautiful calculus teacher uses her slide rule to determine what the other team is going to do on NBC's Grand Marquee.
• The lesson of Heart Beat Theater is that brains aren't everything, you also need to listen to your heart as well in "The Awakening of Uncle Charlie".
• Behind the creaking door of The Inner Sanctum, creepiness ensues when a retired artist sells his brain to an evil doctor. The deal falls through when the doctor is murdered and bodies in the University Medical Lab begin disappearing.
• The late Professor Marx's brain will be of incredible value to science, so he agreed to leave it to the medical department, but the body is held for ransom in "Stolen Brain" on Police Headquarters.
• It takes a lot of brains to explore the galaxy, something Space Patrol knows only too well. Commander Corry faces an evil industrialist who intends on holding the brain of a dying scientist in suspended animation in "The Brain Bank".
• One of the most fascinating tales in all of science fiction is "Donovan's Brain", the story of a physician who removes a millionaire's brain just before his body dies. He keeps the brain alive in a glass tank filled with an electrically charges highly oxygenated saline solution. In time, the brain begins to communicate with the physician to the point of imposing his will over the doctor's actions. Suspense was impressed enough with the story that it was presented on two occasions. The first was in 1944 featuring Orson Welles playing the protagonist in a rare two-part presentation. At the beginning of 1948, Suspense adopted a one-hour format, and the script was used again in February of that year.
• Science fiction takes a back seat to science fact when Cavalcade of America tells the story of pioneering brain surgeon Harvey Cushing in "The Doctor with Hope in his Hands". 

See also: Amnesia and Memory Loss Collection and Computers and Electronic Brains in Old Time Radio.