The Criminal Corpse, Anatomists and the Criminal Law: Parliamentary Attempts to Extend the Dissection of Offenders in Late Eighteenth-Century England.

Richard Ward

doi:10.1017/jbr.2014.167

Abstract

In the later eighteenth century two schemes were introduced in Parliament for extending the practice of handing over the bodies of executed offenders to anatomists for dissection. Both measures were motivated by the needs of anatomy - including the improvement of surgical skill, the development of medical teaching in the provinces, and for conducting public anatomical demonstrations. Yet both failed to pass into law due to concerns about the possibly damaging effects in terms of criminal justice. Through a detailed analysis of the origins and progress of these two parliamentary measures - a moment when the competing claims of anatomy and criminal justice vied for supremacy over the criminal corpse - the following article sheds light on judicial attitudes to dissection as a method of punishment and adds to our understanding of why the dread of dissection would come to fall upon the dead poor (rather than executed offenders) in the nineteenth century.

Highlights

On Friday, 12 May 1786, the distinguished philanthropist and social reformer, William Wilberforce, stood up before the House of Commons
Just ten years later, in March 1796, the backbench MP Richard Jodrell put it to Parliament that a bill be introduced for punishing criminals executed for burglary and highway robbery with anatomization and dissection.[3]. In this instance the motion was immediately dropped following widespread opposition from MPs in the Commons. Both these legislative efforts in the later eighteenth century to extend the practice of dissecting offenders were decisively motivated by the needs of medical science, yet each failed to reach the statute books due to concerns about the damaging effects the measures would have in terms of criminal justice
The later eighteenth century represents a particular moment when the competing claims of anatomy and criminal justice vied for supremacy over the criminal corpse