When Dad told me he was going to donate his body to science I was surprised. Did a 21st century medical profession need cadavers? Was human dissection still part of the learning process? The very word conjured up images of a morally murky bygone era. A medieval world to which one would rather not return and most certainly not contemplate in the context of one’s dying father.
However it turned out Dad was right. The need for bodies has never been more acute. With increasingly intricate surgery the thirst for a total knowledge of the body and its many challenges and inconsistencies demands numerous cadavers. But according to the Royal College of Surgeons there is a real shortfall. In 2008 it is estimated that only 600 bequests lead to actual donations, yet there are 45000 medical and dental students at any one time in Britain. Why then are so few people prepared to do what my father did and bypass conventional burial or cremation and instead donate their bodies? After all to quote Dad before he died ‘surely better to be useful than end up as food for the worms?
In fact the reason why many anatomy departments are left without their most vital instrument of learning is in great part due to history which has burdened the medical profession with an almighty PR problem. Over a hundred and fifty years on and the legacy of the infamous body snatchers still looms large. There’s a tendency to associate the dissection of cadavers with grave diggers and an exploited underbelly. In the early nineteenth century only the criminal dead could be given to science; this left the rapidly expanding medical world with a huge shortfall and the system was open to horrendous abuse. In the wake of murderous Burke and Hare the law changed but it wasn’t until the first half of the 20th century that a shift in attitudes witnessed an increase in donations. Two World Wars saw patriotism swell and the nation did whatever it could to help the doctors on the front line. During the 1940s and 50s body donations peaked.
But World Wars galvanise community spirit like nothing else – the ‘all hands on deck’ attitude withered on the cynical sixties vine as did the euphoric belief in the chemotherapeutic revolution and a world where modern medicine could solve everything. In came a new era of media probing and scandals: Alderhay and Bristol Hearts Babies underlined the dwindling trust between the public and the medical profession. People confuse pathology with anatomy and don’t realise that the latter is there with the sole purpose of educating future doctors. Today’s students are missing out, with what effect only time will tell.
As for Dad you can hear more from him on the One Show, 7pm on BBC1 this Monday and Tuesday…. someone who really did carry on working after death.

My father was convinced that donations have also slumped because no one likes to mention medicine’s need for cadavers. Doctors don’t feel comfortable asking for such a deeply personal gift and as a society we’re particularly bad at talking about death and the options available. Dad was sick for years but euphemisms abounded, some friends even talked of him ‘getting better.’ However he was a realist to the end. Years of working with livestock taught him that death was inevitable and a carcass no more than an empty shell – as he put it ‘food for the worms.’ Why not donate what’s left to learning instead?

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