Death, Dissection and the DestituteIn the early nineteenth century, body snatching was rife because the only corpses available for medical study were those of hanged murderers. With the Anatomy Act of 1832, however, the bodies of those who died destitute in workhouses were appropriated for dissection. At a time when such a procedure was regarded with fear and revulsion, the Anatomy Act effectively rendered dissection a punishment for poverty. Providing both historical and contemporary insights, Death, Dissection, and the Destitute opens rich new prospects in history and history of science. The new afterword draws important parallels between social and medical history and contemporary concerns regarding organs for transplant and human tissue for research. |
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Act's anatomists Anatomy Act Anatomy Bill anatomy school appeared Astley Cooper belief Bentham Benthamite bequests Bill's bodies for dissection bodysnatchers Bransby Bransby Cooper Broadsheet burial buried Burke and Hare Burke's chapter cholera Cobbett's Weekly Political coffin College of Surgeons corpses custom dead bodies death discussion dissection doctors Edinburgh evidence fear Folklore funeral grave grave-robbery Guthrie Hansard Henry Warburton History hospital human Inspector Knox Lancet Leeds letter Lond London London Burkers Lord Medical Education Medicine murder National Political Union nineteenth century observed Office operation Paisley parish Parliament parliamentary passage patients paupers Peel period person petition Poor Law popular post-mortem profession punishment referred Reform Report resurrectionists Richardson riot Roberts Royal College seems Select Committee Sir Astley Smith social Society Somerville Somerville's suggests supply surgery surgical Thomas Thomas Wakley Thompson transplantation Tyburn unclaimed Victorian Wakley Wakley's Warburton Weekly Political Register William workhouse
References to this book
Medicine as Culture: Illness, Disease and the Body in Western Societies Deborah Lupton No preview available - 2003 |
Health, Civilization, and the State: A History of Public Health from Ancient ... Dorothy Porter No preview available - 1999 |