---
title: O.C.G.A. § 31-21-23. Distribution of bodies by board.
collection: code
id: 31-21-23
cite_as: O.C.G.A. § 31-21-23 (2025)
canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-21-23
md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-21-23.md
text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-21-23/text
source_url: https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/document/docs/default-source/joint-features-document-library/t31-(v23)-2025-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=da7ded69_0#page=877
date: 2025
status: active
corpus_version: 2025-supplement-89aa39ab3c68
license: CC0-1.0
publisher: Georgia Commons, an independent project of Georgia Civic Data. Not the State of Georgia. Not legal advice.
up: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-21.md
previous: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-21-22.md
next: https://georgiacommons.org/code/31-21-24.md
index: https://georgiacommons.org/code/index.md
version: the only printed version
in_force: true
current_through: Including Acts of the 2025 Session of the General Assembly of Georgia
heading_path: HEALTH / DEAD BODIES / DISPOSITION OF UNCLAIMED DEAD BODIES
---

# O.C.G.A. § 31-21-23. Distribution of bodies by board.

The board or its duly authorized agent may distribute bodies received pursuant to Code Section 31-21-21 to and among the schools or colleges described in Code Section 31-21-20 for lectures and demonstrations by such schools or colleges. The number assigned to each shall be based upon the number of bona fide students in each dissecting or operative surgery class, which number of students shall be reported by the schools or colleges to the board at such times as it may direct, provided that the schools or colleges, upon receiving such bodies and before any use is made of them, and without unnecessary mutilation or dissecting, shall cause them to be embalmed properly and preserved carefully and kept for a period of 60 days from the day of receipt and shall deliver them properly prepared for burial, cremation, or other proper disposition to any persons mentioned and described in Code Section 31-21-21, who shall claim such bodies before the expiration of the period of 60 days and who shall satisfy the officers of the school or college that they are such persons as are entitled under Code Section 31-21-21 to claim such bodies. If, at the expiration of 60 days, such body or bodies have not been claimed for burial in the manner and by the person or persons described in this article, they shall then be used by the schools or colleges for the purposes specified in this article. When the bodies have been so used and are no longer needed or serviceable for the purposes mentioned in this article, they shall be decently interred by the schools or colleges.

## History

Ga. L. 1887, p. 87, § 3; Civil Code 1895, § 1515; Civil Code 1910, § 1759; Code 1933, § 88-705; Code 1933, § 88-2705, enacted by Ga. L. 1964, p. 499, § 1; Ga. L. 2025, p. 1029, § 31(58)/SB 153, effective July 1, 2025.

## Amendments

The 2025 amendment, effective July 1, 2025, part of an Act to revise, modernize, and correct the Code, deleted “for distribution” following “The board” at the beginning of the first sentence and deleted “above-specified” following “colleges to the” in the second sentence.