Abstract
In Japan, the legal bases for cadaver dissection performed by medical students are the "Postmortem Examination and Corpse Preservation Act" enacted in 1949, and "Act on Body Donation for Medical and Dental Education" promulgated in 1983. At present, cadavers for anatomical dissection are supplied totally by willing body donation, but several decades ago, the bodies used for dissection practice were mostly those of persons who had died from weakness along the road. In those days, the supply of cadavers for anatomical dissection was remarkably insufficient. Therefore, when the Act on Body Donation was enacted, it aimed to increase persons who would donate their remains mainly for the sake of medical education. Recently, the demand to use donated cadavers for surgical anatomy research and/or operation training is rising, and a few research papers have been published already. However, the exceptional use of donated cadavers may need to obtain the consent of each donor and/or its family, and to confirm legitimacy as well, because body donation in Japan has developed on a mutual trust between the medical community and the people in Japan.
