The Grand Finale!

In yesterday's class we had a very cool presentation on repatriation of First Nations artefacts and remains within Canada. I found the whole subject to be really interesting, especially because our presenter was outlining reasons that Canada should not implement any overarching legislation similar to the USA's NAGPRA. While she was talking about a few examples of repatriation of Canadian First Nations Groups' ancestral remains, she mentioned a museum in Glasgow called the Hunterian Museum. The Hunterian Museum is connected to the University of Glasgow and is governed by their board of directors, and she pointed them out as a stark contrast to another museum in Glasgow which is actively seeking to repatriate any remains in collections which they possess. 

(Thanks University of Glasgow!) One of the exhibits which
The Hunterian Museum displays. 

Having started my morning with this presentation, my ears perked up when 10 hours later I was sitting in another class listening to a presentation on a different topic. (Yes you read that correctly, 10 hours passed between my first and last class of the day. Wednesdays are long). In my Skeletal Diseases course we are doing presentations, and one group told us about Acromegaly and Gigantism. There was a man name Charles Byrne who was called the "Irish Giant" who suffered from this disease. When the Byrne was on his death bed, he requested to be buried at sea; however, as soon as he died doctors rushed in and purchased his body in order to study it. His skeleton is now on display, against his wishes, in the Hunterian Museum of London. Although this Hunterian Museum is not connected to that of Glasgow, both are guilty of retaining human remains against the wishes of the people themselves, or their ancestors. 

Thanks The Londonist! Follow the link in the caption to
read an interesting piece on whether or not Byrne should
finally be given his requested burial at sea.

This is such a difficult subject to discuss, because as the Hunterian in London states explicitly that they will retain or collect specimens that are either: 

"Recent (less than 100 years) specimens illustrating normal or pathological human anatomy for specific educational purposes."

or: 

"Specimens over 100 years old illustrating normal or pathological human anatomy."

See Section 3.6 for these quotes: http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums/documents/RCS%20Museums%20and%20Archives%20Acquistion%20-%20Disposal%20Policy.pdf 

Is it okay to retain human remains if we can gain knowledge from them? Would there be more justification if there were doctors actively studying specimens such as Byrne's skeleton rather than leaving it permanently on display? Or as someone mentioned in class yesterday, are we simply being over sensitive?