The number of hours allocated to cadaver dissection
and lectures in anatomy has decreased
considerably. However, it always remains true
that cadaver dissection is the core part of education
in anatomy, and anatomy provides the
foundation for the entire medical education. The
greatness of the mental and physical burdens
associated with dissecting human bodies also
remains unchanged. As medical education has
become more and more standardized and
efficient, the role of the cadaver dissection course
has become even more important. It provides a
precious occasion for students to be confronted
with the human body. The body of a person lying
in front of them means various things for the
person, for the family, and for physicians. With
such thoughts in mind, students excavate nerves,
blood vessels, organs, muscles, and other structures,
and explore the mechanisms supporting
the human body.
At Juntendo University, students of the school
of medicine attend the dissection course from
late October to early February in the second
year. The moment when students meet the body
to be dissected is full of tension. Each body on the
table is a person, who has lived a life of several
decades, and is lying there because he or she
wanted to. Everybody in the dissection course
silently prays for the souls of body donors (Fig. 1).
However, once the covering cloth is removed,
and a knife cuts the skin to reveal the interior of
the body, the body instantly becomes a cadaver.
During the 4 months that follow, students are
busy identifying and removing each and every
structure constituting the human body—muscles,
blood vessels, nerves, thoracic and abdominal
organs, etc. They realize that the body of a person
is an assembly of tangible objects. The experience
of doing this using their own hands is invaluable.
On the other hand, students are fully aware that
the structures taken out of the cadaver are something
more than physical objects. This is because
they have met the body as a person with dignity,
and because they themselves have changed it to
an object of science called a cadaver