Giving your body for dissection overcomes an ancient taboo | Giles Fraser: Loose canon

The selflessness of those who have donated their corpses for students to learn from will be honoured at Southwark cathedral this Friday

The dissecting room at Guy's hospital in London is located at the top of the building so people can't peer in through the windows. Quite rightly, the hospital preserves the dignity of those who have given their bodies to be dissected. But it's common enough for people to want to rubberneck, maybe for some ghoulish thrill, maybe out of deep existential curiosity.

Personally, I have spent enough time around dead bodies to have got past all of that. And by the time I get up all those stairs I'm puffing away like a 20-a-day asthmatic and already sufficiently in touch with my mortality.

Continue reading...