The Ethical Awakening of Human Anatomy: Reassessing the Past and Envisioning a More Ethical Future

Abstract

Human anatomy lives at the interface between its dependence upon high quality dead human bodies for use in teaching and research, and the need to show respect for the deceased and their families. This tension has existed throughout the 500 years of modern anatomy’s development, although for many of those years the pressures to provide sufficient numbers of dead bodies obscured serious ethical deliberation. As awareness of the latter has burgeoned over recent years, attention has turned to practices such as the use of anonymous archival human material, reliance upon using unclaimed bodies as opposed to bodies specifically bequeathed for dissecting purposes, and the legitimacy of public exhibitions of dissected plastinated whole bodies. Discussion of these topics has necessitated an assessment of well-known historical incidents, including dissection as a punishment for murder, the resurrectionists (grave robbers), the dependence of iconic figures in anatomy such as Vesalius on these questionable procedures, and the practice of Nazi anatomists in working closely with the authorities to obtain unclaimed bodies from ethically abhorrent sources. A dominant message to emerge from these historical episodes has been anatomists’ ready acceptance of the bodies of the poor and vulnerable. As anatomists have begun to address ethical imperatives, a theme to come into increasing prominence has been the need to humanise the practice of anatomy, in an attempt to recognise the dignity of the recently deceased and their interests when alive. This provides an ethical base from which to address new challenges for human anatomists, including 3D printing of human material, the growing use of data sets freely available on the internet, and the increasing availability of donated bodies following physician assisted death.