Seven bodies serving science at USU cadaver lab

By Jill Prichard

May 13, 2005 | On the third floor of the Biology Natural Resources Building is a room full of deadheads. Only these aren't students. Utah State University has a cadaver lab where Biology 2010 and 4000-level students learn from hands-on experience.

There are seven bodies on cold silver tables: Elizabeth, Onida, George, Tom, Kerry, Allen and Dell. All are wrapped in zipped-up black body bags.

The bodies are from the Salt Lake City area and cost $1,150 each.

Through rigorous dissection, they are only kept for a year.

For 27 years, Andy Anderson of the biology department has volunteered to teach the dissection course and to give tours.

"Living patients bothered me. They [the cadavers] aren't going to sue you and they won't be screaming at you and bleeding on your shoes," said Anderson.

An anatomy class from Western Wyoming Community College has come to tour the lab. Each cadaver table has a fan that takes out the smell of formaldehyde, so there is no overpowering odor.

"The room is designed to suck," said Anderson.

Over each station is a white erase board that has the name of the cadaver, age, occupation and cause of death. The youngest cadaver is George, who was 32 and an Army soldier who died of a brain tumor in 2004.

Behind the body of George is a plastic tub full of red liquid, which contains his brain.

Anderson pulls the brain out and holds it gently in his hands. The brain is not dissected. It is used to show the long spinal cord, the spheres of the brain and the placement of the eyeballs. The eyes are still attached and dangle lifelessly.

"The brain's consistency is that of Jell-O when alive and firm Jell-O when dead," adds Anderson.

Next to George's brain is a glass jar about the size of triple-flavored popcorn containers you purchase at Christmastime. This urn houses the head of Ilene.

Her head is split in half, a perfectly symmetrical line down the center of her face and skull. By holding half the head, Anderson points out that the human skull is not "thick." Anderson also points out the sections of the brain, the arbor vitae (a.k.a. the "tree of life"), and pulls out the only color part of this dead head, Ilene's pink dentures.

Putting Ilene's half head back into its home, Anderson reaches for another container.

Robed in white plastic aprons and plastic nylon gloves, each student is given a section of the digestion track. It takes nine people to hold the long narrow pathway of food. It begins with the tongue and ends with the anus. Anderson points out each section that the food travels through. After his explanation, the digestive track is coiled back into the round container.

Moving over to a cadaver, students carefully unzip the body bag and pull back the blue covering sheet. A skinned body is revealed. This cadaver is used for the study of muscles and their motion. A layer of fat still remains on the cadaver to show what layers have been removed. Two students work together to bend his leg at the knee. A silver artificial joint appears. This cadaver, which died in his mid-80s, had two knee replacements. Anderson will add these stainless steel knees to his other "souvenirs."

Carefully replacing the cover sheet and closing the cadaver's bag, the tour moves to another body.

Kerry, a 79-year-old business woman, died of colon cancer. This was the first cancer to kill her, but not the only one that invaded her body.

Her liver was three times its normal size. It was black and took up the majority of her chest cavity. Above her liver were the cancer-dotted lungs.

Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, marbles and golf balls were the sizes of the hundreds of tumors that covered her lungs.

Still visible to the eye and still present enough to touch, these tumors presented the most powerful, yet silent lesson of the tour. Kerry was cut off at the waist. Her midsection was in a tub of juices at the foot of her body.

Pulling out the middle section, Anderson pointed to and encouraged the female students to see and feel the uterus, fallopian tubes and bladder. The uterus acts as the home for a growing embryo for about nine months. It is the size of a female fist, yet can stretch to hold one or more babies at a time. It sits on top of the bladder, which explained the frequent bathroom trips by expecting mothers.

Putting Kerry back into the container and closing up her body bag, Anderson explains what happens to the cadavers after their life in the lab.

"After their time is up in the lab, their remains are cremated and the ashes are either turned back over to the family or to a group grave at the University of Utah."

There are special services offered the burial site with a tombstone that "thanks" the cadavers for their donation to science.

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