BIRMINGHAM. Ala.--A cadaver was removed from an anatomy class at the University of Alabama School of Medicine after a medical student reported that it was the body of her great aunt.

A recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association described the incident in a letter to the editor written by two staff members at the school.

They wrote that the "potentially bizarre occurrence" arose during the first day of an anatomy laboratory, when medical students began dissecting nine cadavers. At the end of the class, "a student informed the director that the distinct possibility existed that one of the cadavers (not the one she was dissecting) was a great aunt."

The body was removed and replaced by another by the state anatomical board after "it was ascertained that the cadaver was indeed her great aunt."