ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a brief explanation and elaboration of the enthusiasm that some sections of the Sri Lankan population appear to have for donating their bodies at death for the benefit of the country's medical students. In July 2000, the author made his first visit to the Medical Faculty of the University of Colombo for a series of meetings organised by a doctor friend. He focused on the regulation of new reproductive and genetic technologies. The key sites for this study was the Human Genetics Unit, which was housed institutionally in the Department of Anatomy. The idea of a surfeit of cadavers stuck throughout the author's subsequent visits reappeared as a leitmotif in his research into bioethics and biomedical science in Sri Lanka. The transition of the pious cadaver from a family's custody to that of a medical school brings other entanglements.
