Unclaimed bodies and medical school anatomy classes.

 There's a long history of unclaimed bodies being used in medical school anatomy classes. (I think the historical availability of such cadavers is one of the reasons that the Harvard Medical School is in Boston rather than Cambridge.*)  Here's an update on the practice, in Texas.

Unclaimed Bodies and Medical Education in Texas, by Eli Shupe, PhD1; Serena Karim2; Daniel Sledge, PhD, JAMA.  online August 24, 2023

"The use of unclaimed bodies (bodies not claimed by next of kin for burial or cremation) in gross anatomy education in the US has declined substantially since the middle of the 20th century owing to increases in voluntary donations and escalating ethical concerns.1-3 Nonetheless, in most US jurisdictions, counties can donate unclaimed bodies to science without consent from the deceased or their next of kin, with some medical schools still accepting such donations. The current scope and magnitude of the use of unclaimed bodies in the US is underresearched, although one 2019 study found that anatomy course leaders at 12.4% of surveyed US medical schools indicated possible use of unclaimed bodies at their institutions.4 The objective of this study was to examine the trends in use of unclaimed bodies in medical education in Texas.

...

"We found that during 2017-2021, 6 of the 14 medical schools in our sample (42.9%) either engaged in the direct procurement and use of unclaimed bodies (2 schools, 14.3%) or received transferred cadavers from schools that did (4 schools, 28.6%). The remaining 8 schools (57.1%) had no possible use of unclaimed bodies."

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*Here's a related story from the Harvard Crimson:

Harvard's Habeas Corpus: Grave Robbing at Harvard Medical School, BY NURIYA SAIFULINA, September 28, 2017

"Harvard’s corpse legacy began in late 18th century, when the newly opened Medical School began hiring grave diggers—not to bury bodies, but to exhume them. According to a 2015 history of the so-called “resurrection men” in Synthesis, an undergraduate history of science journal, the diggers snuck into Boston’s burial grounds in search of new graves, stealthily dug up some of the most “fresh” residents, and refilled the graves to avoid arousing suspicion.

...

"Around 1770, Joseph Warren founded an illicit secret society called the “Spunker Club,” also known as the “Anatomical Club.” His older brother, John Warren—the founder of Harvard Medical School—was also a member. Some of the club’s most notable members included a William Eustis, the future governor of Massachusetts, and Samuel Adams’ son.

...

"As “resurrection men” and body-snatching enthusiasts continued to ransack Boston graveyards, civil indignation incited the Act to Protect the Sepulchers of the Dead in 1815, making disturbance of buried bodies illegal and prompting a citywide patrol of graveyards and burial grounds.

"This legislature forced Harvard Medical School to “import” the cadavers from New York instead, where body snatchers were “emptying at least six hundred or seven hundred graves annually,” according to an article in the Boston Gazette.

"After the Massachusetts Medical Society published a plea in 1829 claiming that medical students had no other choice but to pursue their studies “in defiance of the law of the land,” the school’s need for illegally-obtained cadavers waned. Massachusetts passed the Anatomy Act of 1831, which allowed for dissection of the unclaimed bodies of the indigent, insane and imprisoned."