Introduction

The procurement and storage of human tissue and body parts has a long tradition in human history. The development of Western science – especially anatomy – was based, among other prerequisites, on the collection of human corpses and their parts. Similarly, a long-standing Western religious tradition involved retaining the remains of saints and holy objects for religious practices. Although the Enlightenment led to a kind of alienation of the public with regard to such habits and practices for religious purposes, our contemporary museums are full of human remains which were collected for scientific demonstration, curiosity, or both. For example, there was a discussion in Germany in 2010 as to whether two heads of Maori warriors could be shown in public (in an anthropological collection) or should be given back to the people of New Zealand. The German Hygiene Museum in Dresden has the complete and well-prepared body of a Lilliputian on exhibition, with unknown scientific value. And finally, thousands of spectators in Europe visited the Body Worlds exhibition of Gunther von Hagens. Beneath this open public fascination with the secrets of the human body in its various forms, institutions of medical therapy and research routinely store thousands of samples each day. In particular, the organ retention scandals in Ireland and the United Kingdom revealed that storing tissues and body parts was often done without the consent or even the knowledge of the concerned persons or their relatives in the past.