142.3 - NOTIFICATION OF DEPARTMENT.
142.3 NOTIFICATION OF DEPARTMENT.
Every county medical examiner, funeral director or embalmer, and
the managing officer of every public asylum, hospital, county care
facility, penitentiary, or reformatory, as soon as any dead body
shall come into the person's custody which may be used for scientific
purposes as provided in sections 142.1 and 142.2, shall at once
notify the nearest relative or friend of the deceased, if known, and
the Iowa department of public health by telegram, and hold such body
unburied for forty-eight hours. Upon receipt of such telegram the
department shall telegraph instructions relative to the disposition
to be made of said body. Complete jurisdiction over said bodies is
vested exclusively in the Iowa department of public health. No
autopsy or post mortem, except as are legally ordered by county
medical examiners, shall be performed on any of said bodies prior to
their delivery to the medical schools. Section History: Early Form
[S13, § 4946-c; C24, 27, 31, 35, 39, § 2353; C46, 50, 54, 58,
62, 66, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, § 142.3]