Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Human Tissue Act, 1961 : 9 & 10 Eliz 2, Ch 54. Source: Wellcome Collection.
![An Act to make provision with respect to the use of parts of bodies of deceased persons for therapeutic purposes and purposes of medical education and research and with respect to the circumstances in which post-mortem examinations may be carried out; and to permit the cre- mation of bodies removed for anatomical examination. [27th July, 1961] | y E it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and D> with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and -— Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows :— 1.—(1) If any person, either in writing at any time or orally Removal of in the presence of two or more witnesses during his last illness, parts of has expressed a request that his body or any specified part of bodies for his body be used after his death for therapeutic purposes or for Medical ‘Bear : : : purposes, purposes of medical education or research, the person lawfully in possession of his body after his death may, unless he has reason to believe that the request was subsequently withdrawn, authorise the removal from the body of any part or, as the case may be, the specified part, for use in accordance with the request. (2) Without prejudice to the foregoing subsection, the person lawfully in possession of the body of a deceased person may authorise the removal of any part from the body for use for the said purposes if, having made such reasonable enquiry as may be practicable, he has no reason to believe— (a) that the deceased had expressed an objection to his body being so dealt with after his death, and had not withdrawn it; or (b) that the surviving spouse or any surviving relative of the deceased objects to the body being so dealt with. ]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32180998_0001.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
