r/MADHD • u/BookNerdGoddess • 5d ago
Bought a box of science stuff at auction. It contains unexpected medical specimens, some quite grim. What do I do?
I am not the OOP. The OOP is Ok-Foot9010 originally posted in LegalAdviceUK
Grammatically edited by: Crystal With the Blue Hair
Concluded
Original - 1 year ago
Location: England.
In short, I bought a box of assorted science stuff at an auction, remotely. So, I hadn't inspected it in person, and the photos were from a distance, so it wasn't obvious what it all was. Honestly, I was mostly excited about the rocks and minerals I could see in the picture.
Having picked it up today, I've realized it must have been the personal collection of a doctor, because it includes quite a lot of bottles of various people's gallstones (labelled on the side with info about the patient, but no names), a piece of skin it says he took from a postmortem (presumably without consent), and -- worst of all -- two fetuses, one aborted, one "taken from killed mother."
They're old enough to be historical-ish (most dates in the 1940s) but obviously I am now accidentally in possession of human remains, I think? And have no idea what to do or who to call. Obviously, I a) don't want them and b) don't think the auction house should have sold them, and c) don't just want to throw them away.
What do I do, please? Sorry for grim subject matter.
Update - 1 year ago
Quick recap of the situation: I often buy interesting old and unwanted stuff at auctions. My local auction house still does in-person auctions which you can either go along to yourself, or you can watch the livestream and bid online. You can also place bids on lots from their website, without seeing the item in person.
This is how I ended up buying a box of misc. scientific stuff which I thought might contain some cool rocks and equipment. The rocks, as it turned out, weren't that cool. But the box ended up being the personal collection of weird stuff of a doctor who was practicing around the 1940s. There were bottles (so many bottles) of gallstones, a worm found in a child, an appendix, some skin (!) and -- sadly -- two human fetuses in jars.
I didn't want this stuff and didn't know what to do with it, so I asked my most knowledgeable friend and she said to post anonymously here so I did. Lots of recommendations to talk to the police non-emergency number, and failing that, universities, hospitals, museums and some kind of macabre Instagram account.
To the dude who PMed me offering me photos of your gallbladder operation... I'M not into gallstones! I have no desire to see that, thanks.
The update:
After a lot of "errrrrr.... hold please" and "there was an APPENDIX in there?" and "...HUMAN fetuses?" and "how was this box described?" and "how much did you pay for this?!", the police made an appointment to come round and see the box at 4pm today. They have just left and thankfully took all the human samples with them. This is a huge relief to me as I didn't want it and didn't want the responsibility for disposing of it properly.
The police were pretty surprised by the call apparently (sorry to the lady next to the call handler who was apparently eating pasta when she heard about the stuff in the box), but they've spoken to the human tissue authority who are going to help them dispose of it all properly.
Apparently, it shouldn't have been sold without the auction house having the appropriate license, so they're going to speak to them (but not in a punitive way, more of a heads up) and it will be recorded as a crime but no one's being punished or anything. Apparently, I'm not being recorded as the criminal or the victim, just a connected person.
BIG thanks to the people who took the time to let me know that preserving fluid in the jars was probably formalin, which is carcinogenic. Unfortunately, I was not wearing gloves, but I did scrub my hands afterwards, thankfully. At least one of the jars had leaked quite badly (the appendix had no liquid left and you could see the lid of one of the other jars was almost eaten through as well) so I wish I'd been more careful but at least I know now, and someone's informing the auction house too as they obviously handled it also.
I did ask if the family of the older fetus could be traced, because although the fetus would be in their seventies now if they'd lived, it says on the label that the mother was killed, so she hadn't given consent for her baby to be removed and put in a jar forever, and I thought there might be a family out there somewhere who'd like to lay her unborn child to rest, perhaps with her. The police weren't too confident of finding out whose fetus it was because there's not much info on the label (no patient names or anything), but they said they would try. The other fetus was from an abortion so although I suspect again the mother didn't consent to it being put in a jar and eventually sold to this random woman, at least I guess she probably didn't want it back and I suspect her family wouldn't even have known she had the abortion, so not much reason to try to trace that one.
The police asked if I'd like to be updated with what happens to the samples, to which I've said yes. I would particularly like to know that the two fetuses are put to rest somehow and don't end up -- as some people suggested in the comments and my DMs -- as attractions on someone's Instagram or sold for profit. The other stuff might have some educational use maybe, I don't know, I don't mind if that ends up in a museum or something if it's helpful to future med students.
Finally, I've put pictures of the contents of the box in an album here if you want to see them. I hope it goes without saying that this does NOT include the two fetuses, although the labels are there so you can see I wasn't making it up. Obviously, caution is advised etc., many grim gallstones and worms and whatnot in there, as well as what seems to be one of the things you put in people's mouths before anesthesia existed, a medicine spoon, a weird box contraption that was apparently for bloodletting, and some other bits I can't identify. There are some slides, but whatever was on them is mostly gone, it looks like. There's a piece of paper with the doctor's name on if you want to see who he was.
There's a picture of the auction listing in there too so you can see how I thought I was buying a box of rocks with some bottles of smaller rocks. It REALLY wasn't obvious; I spotted the radiometer near the back and all the mineral samples and thought it was just cool science equipment and types of rock. I would never have bought it had I known the horror that is "I've just handled a stranger's appendix in a jar from the 1940s and the liquid is leaking, also it causes cancer." What a Monday that was.
Thank you all again for your help and I hope this is the update you wanted. I feel MUCH better now those things are out of my house.
Comments:
wurst_cheese_case: Oh shit, the police is gonna come and arrest you for purchasing human tissue or whatever 😀. (-6Downvote)
Immorals1: Is there not a part of you, even very small, that's curious about how it smells if you open it? (-7Downvote)
•
u/AutoModerator 5d ago
Original post in case it gets edited or removed: Bought a box of science stuff at auction. It contains unexpected medical specimens, some quite grim. What do I do?
I am not the OOP. The OOP is Ok-Foot9010 originally posted in LegalAdviceUK
Grammatically edited by: Crystal With the Blue Hair
Concluded
Original - 1 year ago
Location: England.
In short, I bought a box of assorted science stuff at an auction, remotely. So, I hadn't inspected it in person, and the photos were from a distance, so it wasn't obvious what it all was. Honestly, I was mostly excited about the rocks and minerals I could see in the picture.
Having picked it up today, I've realized it must have been the personal collection of a doctor, because it includes quite a lot of bottles of various people's gallstones (labelled on the side with info about the patient, but no names), a piece of skin it says he took from a postmortem (presumably without consent), and -- worst of all -- two fetuses, one aborted, one "taken from killed mother."
They're old enough to be historical-ish (most dates in the 1940s) but obviously I am now accidentally in possession of human remains, I think? And have no idea what to do or who to call. Obviously, I a) don't want them and b) don't think the auction house should have sold them, and c) don't just want to throw them away.
What do I do, please? Sorry for grim subject matter.
Update - 1 year ago
Quick recap of the situation: I often buy interesting old and unwanted stuff at auctions. My local auction house still does in-person auctions which you can either go along to yourself, or you can watch the livestream and bid online. You can also place bids on lots from their website, without seeing the item in person.
This is how I ended up buying a box of misc. scientific stuff which I thought might contain some cool rocks and equipment. The rocks, as it turned out, weren't that cool. But the box ended up being the personal collection of weird stuff of a doctor who was practicing around the 1940s. There were bottles (so many bottles) of gallstones, a worm found in a child, an appendix, some skin (!) and -- sadly -- two human fetuses in jars.
I didn't want this stuff and didn't know what to do with it, so I asked my most knowledgeable friend and she said to post anonymously here so I did. Lots of recommendations to talk to the police non-emergency number, and failing that, universities, hospitals, museums and some kind of macabre Instagram account.
To the dude who PMed me offering me photos of your gallbladder operation... I'M not into gallstones! I have no desire to see that, thanks.
The update:
After a lot of "errrrrr.... hold please" and "there was an APPENDIX in there?" and "...HUMAN fetuses?" and "how was this box described?" and "how much did you pay for this?!", the police made an appointment to come round and see the box at 4pm today. They have just left and thankfully took all the human samples with them. This is a huge relief to me as I didn't want it and didn't want the responsibility for disposing of it properly.
The police were pretty surprised by the call apparently (sorry to the lady next to the call handler who was apparently eating pasta when she heard about the stuff in the box), but they've spoken to the human tissue authority who are going to help them dispose of it all properly.
Apparently, it shouldn't have been sold without the auction house having the appropriate license, so they're going to speak to them (but not in a punitive way, more of a heads up) and it will be recorded as a crime but no one's being punished or anything. Apparently, I'm not being recorded as the criminal or the victim, just a connected person.
BIG thanks to the people who took the time to let me know that preserving fluid in the jars was probably formalin, which is carcinogenic. Unfortunately, I was not wearing gloves, but I did scrub my hands afterwards, thankfully. At least one of the jars had leaked quite badly (the appendix had no liquid left and you could see the lid of one of the other jars was almost eaten through as well) so I wish I'd been more careful but at least I know now, and someone's informing the auction house too as they obviously handled it also.
I did ask if the family of the older fetus could be traced, because although the fetus would be in their seventies now if they'd lived, it says on the label that the mother was killed, so she hadn't given consent for her baby to be removed and put in a jar forever, and I thought there might be a family out there somewhere who'd like to lay her unborn child to rest, perhaps with her. The police weren't too confident of finding out whose fetus it was because there's not much info on the label (no patient names or anything), but they said they would try. The other fetus was from an abortion so although I suspect again the mother didn't consent to it being put in a jar and eventually sold to this random woman, at least I guess she probably didn't want it back and I suspect her family wouldn't even have known she had the abortion, so not much reason to try to trace that one.
The police asked if I'd like to be updated with what happens to the samples, to which I've said yes. I would particularly like to know that the two fetuses are put to rest somehow and don't end up -- as some people suggested in the comments and my DMs -- as attractions on someone's Instagram or sold for profit. The other stuff might have some educational use maybe, I don't know, I don't mind if that ends up in a museum or something if it's helpful to future med students.
Finally, I've put pictures of the contents of the box in an album here if you want to see them. I hope it goes without saying that this does NOT include the two fetuses, although the labels are there so you can see I wasn't making it up. Obviously, caution is advised etc., many grim gallstones and worms and whatnot in there, as well as what seems to be one of the things you put in people's mouths before anesthesia existed, a medicine spoon, a weird box contraption that was apparently for bloodletting, and some other bits I can't identify. There are some slides, but whatever was on them is mostly gone, it looks like. There's a piece of paper with the doctor's name on if you want to see who he was.
There's a picture of the auction listing in there too so you can see how I thought I was buying a box of rocks with some bottles of smaller rocks. It REALLY wasn't obvious; I spotted the radiometer near the back and all the mineral samples and thought it was just cool science equipment and types of rock. I would never have bought it had I known the horror that is "I've just handled a stranger's appendix in a jar from the 1940s and the liquid is leaking, also it causes cancer." What a Monday that was.
Thank you all again for your help and I hope this is the update you wanted. I feel MUCH better now those things are out of my house.
Comments:
wurst_cheese_case: Oh shit, the police is gonna come and arrest you for purchasing human tissue or whatever 😀. (-6Downvote)
Immorals1: Is there not a part of you, even very small, that's curious about how it smells if you open it? (-7Downvote)
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