Last Updated: 08/18/02

2426.    Lot in burying-ground is exempt from process.

2427.    County, town, and city may provide for burial of dead.

2428.    Who may possess human dead bodies, for purposes of instruction.

2429.    Dead human bodies may be dissected when.

2430.    Conditions precedent to receiving dead body.

2431.    Penalty for violation of this act. 

2426.  Whenever any part of such burying-ground shall have been designated and appropriated by the proprietors thereof as the burying place of any particular person or family, the same shall not be liable to be taken or disposed of by any warrant or execution, for any tax or debt whatever; nor shall the same be liable to be sold to satisfy the demands of creditors whenever the estate of such owner shall be insolvent.

2427.  Each and every county, town, or city shall have power to provide a hearse and pall for burial of the dead, and to procure and hold lands for burying-grounds, and to make regulations, and fence the same, and to preserve the monuments erected therein, and to levy and collect the necessary taxes for that purpose, in the same manner as other taxes are levied and collected.

2428.  Any physician or surgeon of this state, or any medical student under the authority of any such physician or surgeon, may obtain, as hereinafter provided, and have in his possession, human dead bodies, or the parts thereof, for the purposes of anatomical inquiry or instruction. [March 7, 1891, ss1.

2429.  Any sheriff, coroner, keeper of a county poor-house, public hospital, county jail, or state prison must surrender the dead bodies of such persons as are required to be buried at the public expense to any physician or surgeon, to be by him used for the advancement of anatomical science, preference being always given to medical schools by law established in this state, for their use in the instruction of medical students.  But if such deceased person during his last sickness requested to be buried, or if within forty-eight hours after his death some person claiming to be of kindred or a friend of the deceased requires the body to be buried, or if such deceased person was a stranger or traveler who suddenly died before making himself known, such dead body must be buried without dissection. [March 7, 1891, ss2]

2430.  Every physician or surgeon before receiving the dead body must give to the board or officer surrendering the same to him a certificate from the medical society of the county in which he resides, or if there is none, from the board of supervisors of the same, that he is a fit person to receive such dead body.   He must also give a bond with two sureties, that each body so by him received will be used only for the promotion of anatomical science, and that it will be used for such purpose in this state only, and so as in no event to outrage the public feeling. [March 7, 1891, ss3]

2431.  Any person violating any provision of this act shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined in any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars. [March 7, 1891, ss4]

Title ???
Of Crimes Against the Public Health

209.    Willful injury to cemetery, or use of it for foreign purpose -- How punished.

 209.  Every person who shall willfully disfigure, injure, or remove any tombstone, monument, fence, tree, or shrubbery around or within any cemetery, or shall use such cemetery for another purpose than a burying-ground, he shall, upon conviction thereof, be imprisoned in the county jail not exceeding six months, and be fined in any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars, or shall be fined only.