Unclaimed Bodies Claimed by Medicine - Texas Journal of Chiropractic

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Unclaimed Bodies Claimed by Medicine

Published 11/28/2011 - 6:29 a.m. CDT

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The American Medical Association REPORTS HERE that "a new law in Illinois is enabling use of unclaimed bodies in anatomical education to help combat a shortage of cadavers amid a growth in medical school enrollment. The move could signal a nationwide resurrection of the decades-old practice of giving medical schools first choice on unclaimed bodies before they are buried at public expense."

"The medical examiner's office in Cook County, Ill., has so far given five bodies to the Anatomical Gift Assn. of Illinois under the policy. Two of the bodies have been shipped to medical schools for use in dissection."

"The Cook County Board of Commissioners in Chicago voted the practice into law in September 2010, though an 1885 state law already gave coroners the power to give unclaimed bodies to medical schools."

"The effort to revive the 126-year-old law came because of rising demand for cadavers from medical schools and other health profession schools,...In 2010, we received 483 useable cadavers. ... We could have easily placed 600."

"Under the policy, the medical examiner's office keeps an unclaimed body for two weeks while police search for next of kin to notify. If no family is found and the body weighs less than 300 pounds and is free of any communicable diseases, it is shipped to the gift association. The body is embalmed and kept for 60 days before any medical school can use it. If at any time a relative claims the body, before or after dissection, it will be returned."

"There has been more of an interest around the country in resurrecting these old 1800s laws as the number of unclaimed bodies seems to be growing."

The Texas State Journal of Medicine in December 1905 stated that such anatomical laws were needed "to protect graves from desecration, and to encourage and elevate medical education." _{[Texas State Journal of Medicine, Vol I; 1905; Texas Medical Association, Austin, TX; page 188]}

"Most states still have laws giving medical schools access to unclaimed bodies for anatomical education."

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