There's a lot of demand for dead bodies. It's a fairly taboo subject but the reality is there's lots of research that is slow or impossible because it's not easy (or cheap) to obtain human bodies to work with.
And sometimes those bodies get blown up in a chair instead lol
Trans community owes those who donated their bodies a lot, they've been used to perfect techniques for gender-affirming surgery (like vaginoplasties), although reading this thread, I am unsure if the donors knew that was the destiny of their body, or had control over that aspect. Still mad props for just letting go like that to help people and let anything be done with what was left behind.
no, you have no idea what gets done with your body after donation. I'm curious how these families found out the research place sold those specific bodies to the military, much less the fates of each specific body (grandma strapped to a chair and blown up).
What's insane to me that (where I live) I need pay for donating my body. Like wtf. I don't want a burial and that dor thousands of dollars, why the fuck does it cost money to donate my own body.
Having my body used to help perfect a surgery that improves the lives of a currently marginalized community is basically as good of a use as it gets for me, but also the feelings brought about by imagining my eventual corpse sprawled out on a table getting a vagina stitched in has provided further confirmation to me that I am a cis man lmao.
Not that that dissuades me in the slightest. I'm not using the body anymore regardless, so whether it gets modified beyond my normal sensibilities or not doesn't really matter.
I think you guys invented it, when the medical colleges got going and there wasn't a legitimate source for bodies. Michelangelo knew some body brokers: he did a bunch of dissections that were probably illegal/unapproved by the monastery hospital he got them from.
This is a common myth, but basically everybody around him knew what Michaelangelo was doing with the dissections. It might not have been the most ethical part of his work but his patrons, the church, and peers were all totally fine with it. At one point he got the bodies through the church, in exchange for building them a new crucifix. It was definitely approved of by the monastery.
I went to Italy recently and our guides specifically told us Michaelangelo got the bodies legitimately in at least three places, the Vatican museums, the academia where David is, and the church where his tomb is.
Interesting. I guess it depends on who needs to give permission for it to be OK. It seems like a lot of people would get upset if their family members' bodies were used for that purpose (even now).
Thanks for the details, I can see how the myth grew: "bodysnatching Michelangelo" is a more exciting story than "the hospital knew about it and his sketches actually helped advance medical science eventually"
I know that med schools would dig up bodies for research, probably there were others in the trade, too. It were other times though, we had little anatomical knowledge and the church highly regulated autopsies. Legally, researchers mostly relied on convicts because fuck their souls I guess.
I'm sure the practice exists in the EU, too. Though way more regulated. Some organization has to manage and transport of the bodies and connect bodies to organizations that need them.
Well, considering that medical students do operate on dead bodies... yes, the practise exists too. You can donate your body to hospitals and for "science", specially if you have certain health conditions.
Although I'm not sure if bodies can be sold to the military for blowing up in the EU, but the answer is probably yes.
I find it weird but at the same time my mother wanted to donate her body and they wouldn’t take it because she had an autopsy- it’s actually a bit hard to donate your corpse in the U.K. and my partner would love to be blown up experimentally.
3 days late but this happens quite a bit in Europe too. The Body Worlds exhibit is the big one I remember, with their wikipedia outlining a body broker scandal in 2004, but there are more recent articles with the latest (as far as i remember) being 2022?
Body Worlds itself even sells their own plastinated corpses on the founder’s website to this day. Real corpses of actual people are listed as products. It’s a terrible business.
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u/kinky_skittle May 06 '26
I don't know if it's my European feelings being hurt here, but body brokers!?