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Remains from CU's Medical School still in Boulder

Remains from CU's Medical School still in Boulder

Cadavers used in anatomy classes were buried in unmarked lots in Columbia Cemetery


The University of Colorado Department of Medicine andÌýSurgery opened in Boulder in 1883 with two students. By 1890, the medicalÌýschool included more than a dozenÌýstudents, two of them women. InÌýorder to graduate, each student was required to dissect an entire human body.

Records of these cadavers reveal a little-known crossÌýsection of life and death in Boulder County. The body parts were interred inÌýunmarked lots, where they remain today, inÌýBoulder's Columbia Cemetery.

Prior to the school's opening, Dr. Lumen M. Giffin movedÌýto Boulder from New York to become professor of anatomy and physiology.ÌýIn the early days, tuition for theÌýthree-year prog