Speaking for the Dead

Part 1 Cadavers as images of ourselves: anatomy and the culture of dissection; the world of the dead body; locating anatomy; anatomy and art; the ethos and ethics of anatomical science. Part 2 History and contemporary ethos of dissection: anatomy, history and society; the ethical significance of the dead body; obtaining bodies for dissection; why people bequeath their bodies for dissection; is it ethical to use unclaimed bodies?; cadavers as a teaching tool; the centrality of dissection for understanding the human body. Part 3 Acceptable and unacceptable uses of cadavers and tissues: body parts, organs and tissues of the body; the place of autopsies in the world of medicine; can cadavers be abused?; unethical experiments on humans - what can they teach us?. Part 4 Human skeletal remains -when indigenous concerns conflict with scientific aspirations: background; policy developments; scientific interest and indigenous concerns; guidelines for study of human skeletal remains; skeletal material as teaching tools. Part 5 Organ and tissue transplantation - further uses of cadavers: human organ transplantation; consent in cadaveric organ donation; organ transplantation in infants - the use of anencephalics; neural transplantation - the use of foetuses; transplantation of foetal gametes for assisted fertilization; stem cells as sources of tissues and organs; xenotransplantation - crossing species boudaries. Part 6 Cadavers that may not be cadavers: brain death in historical context; definitions of death and brain death; whole brain definition of death; higher brain definition of death; persistent vegetative state; a continuum from life to death. Part 7 Uses of human embryos and foetuses: when are human embryos of ethical significance? - the place of biology; pre-embryo; from brain death to brain birth; embryos as proto-cadavers.