Smith's lobbying helped lead to the 1832 Anatomy Act, the legislation which allowed the state to seize unclaimed corpses from workhouses and sell them to surgical schools.

The Act stipulated that 'unclaimed' corpses should in future be used.

To add authenticity to the plan, unclaimed corpses in the morgue were given the names of the nonexistent people who had supposedly died.

According to legend, the ravenmaster says, there were always ravens at the tower but the situation got out of hand after the Great Fire of 1666 resulted in so many unclaimed corpses lying about.

The name used by the undercover tenant was conferred on an unidentified and unclaimed corpse, in the event that the Public Administrator's office checked on the existence of a body.

It is now notorious for the corpses of 58 Chinese immigrants that lie, unclaimed and unnamed, in large meat lockers - and for the likes of Tara Muhammad roaming its streets.

The story recounts the encounter between a servant and an old woman in the dilapidated Rashōmon, the southern gate of the then ruined city of Kyoto, where unclaimed corpses were sometimes dumped.

There are no chapter headings, just numbers, like unclaimed corpses at the morgue.

More knowledge of anatomy comes from viewing autopsies and attending the embalming laboratory, which uses unclaimed corpses from state hospitals.

He was told to leave however, after being found stealing the personal effects of unclaimed corpses at the nearby morgue, selling them and using the money for alcohol.