Abstract

The teaching of Anatomy in medical schools has significantly declined, and doubts have been raised over whether or not doctors of today are fully equipped with anatomical knowledge required to practice safely. The history of anatomy teaching has changed enormously over centuries, and donating your body to medical science after death is very different today, compared with the body snatching and exhumations of the 18th and 19th centuries. With stories of public outcry, theft and outright murder, the history of anatomical education is a fascinating one. History has made an abundance of significant anatomical discoveries, is it not fundamental that medical students today are aware of the great lengths that our peers went to in order to obtain such pioneering discoveries?

Highlights

  • Anatomy: [noun] the branch of science concerned with the bodily structure of humans, animals, and other living organisms, especially as revealed by dissection and the separation of parts.[1]Human anatomy has been at the foundation of medical science for millennia

  • The study of human physiology and pathological processes could not be fully understood without the fundamental anatomical knowledge gained from close examination of the body in its entirety

  • With the majority of these claims arising from both general and vascular surgery, and reported for “damage to underlying structures”[2] it begs the question, would this still be the case if anatomy teaching today was as focused and lengthy as that of the past?

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Anatomy: [noun] the branch of science concerned with the bodily structure of humans, animals, and other living organisms, especially as revealed by dissection and the separation of parts.[1]. In the mid-sixteenth century, King Henry VIII (1491-1547) granted four hanged felons per year to the companies of Barbers and Surgeons, thereby highlighting the use of dissection as a punishment after death.[3] Obtaining cadavers outside of these granted criminals was most certainly illegal, as the belief in a life after death, and the necessity for a proper burial, was so integral to society that only the King could decide whose corpses were to be dissected These dissections were carried out in public, cementing the universal opinion that dissection was an act of cruelty, designed both to humiliate and entertain. This drove anatomists, surgeons and students (who could not afford the expensive fees of a hospital education and so settled for a private school) to desperation, and the practice of bodysnatching began to advance

The Resurrections
The Irish giant
Public outcry
Burke and Hare
Conclusion
Findings
Key Learning Points
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call