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In a basement on Yale’s campus, a ‘shop of horrors’ concealed medical history

There were hundreds of brains in a basement on the campus, all floating in clear jars with peeling yellowed labels. Those who saw them were duly spooked.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — At some point, the brains in the basement were definitely going to become a draw.

How could they not? There were hundreds of them, all floating in clear jars with peeling yellowed labels: a grim diagnosis; a person’s name. Plus, this wasn’t just any basement. It lay beneath Yale’s medical school dorm, and behind a locked door that could be breached with a screwdriver.

Only a few students knew about the basement.

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