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A morgue or mortuary (in a hospital or elsewhere) is a place used for the storage of human awaiting identification (ID), removal for autopsy, respectful burial, cremation or other methods of disposal. In modern times, corpses have customarily been refrigerated to delay decomposition.
The term morgue comes from the French language. First used to describe the inner wicket of a prison, where new prisoners were kept so that jailers and turnkeys could recognize them in the future, it took on its modern meaning in fifteenth-century Paris, being used to describe part of the Châtelet used for the storage and identification of unknown corpses.
Morgue is predominantly used in North American English, while Mortuary is used in the British English, although both terms are used interchangeably. The “Rose Cottage” and “Rainbow’s End”BBC documentary - Fry's Planet Word: Episode 3: "Uses and Abuses" 9 Oct 2011 are sometimes used in United Kingdom hospitals to enable discussion in front of patients and visitors, the latter mainly for children.
An auxiliary person responsible for the care of the deceased is known as a mortuary assistant or diener. A person qualified in the evisceration and reconstruction of the deceased is called an Anatomical Pathology Technician in the UK, also called a mortician or autopsy technician in the USA.
In many countries, the family of the deceased must make the burial within 72 hours (three days) of death, but in some other countries it is usual that burial takes place some weeks or months after the death. This is why some corpses are kept as long as one or two years at a hospital or in a funeral home. When the family has enough money to organize the ceremony, the corpse is taken from the cold chamber for burial.
In some funeral homes, the morgue is in the same room, or directly adjacent to, the specially designed ovens, known as , that are used in funerary cremation. Some religions dictate that, should a body be cremated, the family must witness its incineration. To honor these religious rites, many funeral homes install a viewing window, which allows the family to watch as the body is inserted into the retort. In this way, the family can honor their customs without entering the morgue.
Oversized mortuary fridge spaces have been installed in British hospitals to cope with the increase in obesity.
In the UK the NHS has asked health trusts to review mortuary access security and procedures in the wake of the David Fuller case in November 2021.
A bell was strung to the corpses to alert attendants of any motion. Although there is no documented case of a person being saved from accidental burial in this way, it is sometimes erroneously believed that this was the origin of the phrase "saved by the bell", whilst in fact, the phrase originates from the sport of boxing. Saved by the bell at Phrases.org
In contrast, modern affluent jurisdictions will usually make every effort to requisition equipment and/or facilities not normally used to store corpses to act as temporary morgues whenever necessary. In theory, any refrigerated space spacious enough to fit a person can act as a temporary morgue in such a situation. In practice, government emergency preparedness procedures usually designate suitable public facilities such as ice rinks to act as morgues if available. Alternatively, refrigerator trucks are sometimes used as morgues, the advantage being that they are usually readily available and can easily be transported to where they are needed, thus sparing the burden of otherwise having to quickly transport large numbers of corpses over great distances.
While temporary morgues are usually set up for isolated local incidents, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in numerous temporary morgues being set up across the planet.
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