2021 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 47-56
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the motivations and perceptions behind the participation of medical research and education by “laymen.” Therefore, this study will illustrate the history of “kentai”; the voluntary donation of bodies to universities for medical research and education. Specifically, laymen who participated in medical research and education at Nagasaki, Tokyo, and Aichi in the 1950s–60s were regarding body donation as a mean to follow the imperial family, to recall the war dead, and to memorialize the victims of the regional development. Furthermore, the essay will clarify the relations that have been reconstructed between the living and the dead through body donation.
