You have died and donated your body to science – what next?
The undertaker contacts the Donation Unit and they agree on a time for delivery of the dead body (or cadaver in medical terminology, ed.). As is traditional, the body is transported by hearse in a coffin.
After arrival at the Donation Unit, the cadaver is placed on a large steel tray and – depending on what’s planned for it – either frozen or embalmed.
The cadavers are either frozen or embalmed because dissection only takes place over a period of a few weeks every six months, so they need to be stored in one of the two ways.
Freezing
Most people's idea of how cadavers are stored probably comes American films, where they are stored in boxes that can be pulled out from a whole wall of boxes.
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In that system the box in which the cadaver is placed is itself a small freezer compartment, while the room itself has a normal room temperature. That is not how things are done here. At the Donation Unit, the cadavers are placed on steel trays in a wall unit in a room that is one large freezer compartment, with room for 25-30 cadavers.
Embalming
The cadavers that are to be embalmed are infused with a liquid via a drip, before being placed in a steel vat filled with water and added surgical spirit. They will typically be stored for six to eight months before being used for their intended purpose, either in connection with the training of medical students (dissection) or in connection with the further and continuing education of medical doctors (postgraduate).
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Once the cadavers have served their purpose, they are returned to their coffins again. In the nature of things, they are not in the same condition as when they arrived at the unit, but conservator Esben Thorup Boel stresses that "they leave here with everything that they arrived with."
In other words, the conservators make sure the bodies are laid to rest properly in the coffin. The undertaker then picks them up again and takes the coffin to cremation.
The urn is then deposited as requested, typically in the unmarked section of a cemetery.
Source: Associate Professor Peter Holm-Nielsen and Conservator Esben Thorup Boel.
Translated by Peter Lambourne