University comes clean after bodies with no names are found in cellar

The University of Cologne has faced accusations of management irregularities at its Institute of Anatomy. Apparently, officials lost track of the identities of bodies for dissection courses for medical undergraduates.

All but three of the donated bodies have now been accounted for.

The issue surfaced last autumn, when the then head of the institute retired and his successor attempted an audit of the institute’s affairs.

At that stage, the number of unaccounted-for bodies in the cellar had already reached double figures. Officials responsible for keeping records at the time have declined to make any comment.

However, according to university press spokesperson Patrick Honecker, the muddle in the cellar was the result of “a very problematic management of records”.

The actual number of bodies did not tally with the list of names. But officials have since managed to reconcile all but three of the bodies with the names given in the donation documents held by the institute.

In order to rule out any possible criminal offences, the university called in the public prosecutor’s office. Various possible criminal offences were checked for, but nothing was found.

Now the university has to concentrate on identifying the three remaining bodies and fulfilling its moral obligations.

“We most deeply deplore the irregularities and have to assume that the failings were merely due to poor record-keeping,” said Thomas Krieg, dean of the medical faculty.

To settle the affair once and for all, the institute has consulted Markus A Rothschild, director of the university’s Institute of Forensics, who also works for the Federal Criminal Police Office and Interpol’s Disaster Victim Identification Committee.

Body donations to science are popular in Germany, not least because relatives can save on the considerable funeral and cemetery costs they would normally have to pay. All donors are entitled to a proper burial, although it is performed anonymously by official institutions. Once a year, there is a central commemoration for all donors.

Over the last few years, supply has considerably exceeded the requirements of the dissection courses for medical students. Whether it is this excess of bodies for the dissection courses that was the ultimate reason for the 'burial backlog' to which the university itself refers, remains unclear.