ABSTRACT
Medicine tended to come in a brown, opaque bottle-any 'yuck factor' was found in the taste. Pharmaceutical companies manufacture an ever growing range of essentially chemical drugs with the power to do much more good than the simpler preparations of the mid-twentieth century. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) allows parents to avoid the birth of a child with some devastating genetic disease. The clinicians perceived the body of the deceased as biological material of potential use in the advancement of medicine. A fundamental cause of the controversy surrounding organ retention was the chasm of misunderstanding between so many families and many clinicians. The grieving parent asked to donate a dead child's heart can make an immediate connection between his pain and another's joy. The Church that places such value on respect for the dead retains the relics of 'assorted saints'. The impact of bereavement and loss inevitably makes debates about the uses of post mortem tissue poignant and complex.
