Grave Robbing Research Articles

33. How to steal a body

You are a medical student in 1820, training in anatomy has now become a prerequisite to graduation but there are limited cadavers available for dissection. Could you be a body snatcher? What about if you only took unclaimed bodies? What if you didn’t actually excavate, just helped drive the wagon? What would be your conditions before you would turn to a life of crime? Keep in mind that just by “borrowing” the occasional body you would provide yourself with ample opportunities to learn anatomy and also easily afford your tuition.
 If you do decide to go ahead and become a body snatcher you’re going to have to learn the classic modus operandi employed by the best in the business. 
 First of all you want to do some daytime reconnaissance by attending the burial to see if any booby traps are being set for potential body snatchers. Next, you return at night with a wagon and drop two men off at the burial site. They then start digging a 3’X3’ hole until they hit the coffin. The body is carefully extracted and any identifying clothing or jewelry is removed and put back in the coffin before being reburied.
 Now you might be worried about retribution but you really don’t have much to fear. Townsfolk have been known to protest in front of medical schools but you’d have to deal with this even if you weren’t a body snatcher. If you end up going to court the worst that would happen is a fine that you could easily pay off by stealing another body or two. 
 Highet MJ. 2005. Body snatching and grave robbing: bodies for science. History and Anthropology 2005; 16(4):415-440.
 MacGillivray R. Body snatching in Ontario. CBMH/BCHM 1988; 5:51-60. 
 Ross I, Ross CU. Body snatching in 19th Century Britain: from exhumation to murder. British Journal of Law and Society 1979; 6(1):108-118.

The poor, the Black, and the marginalized as the source of cadavers in United States anatomical education.

When the practice of hands-on anatomical dissection became popular in United States medical education in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, demand for cadavers exceeded the supply. Slave bodies and thefts by grave robbers met this demand. Members of the public were aware that graves were being robbed and countered with various protective measures. Since the deterrence of grave robbing took time and money, those elements of society who were least economically and socially advantaged were the most vulnerable. Enslaved and free African Americans, immigrants, and the poor were frequently the target of grave robbing. The politically powerful tolerated this behavior except when it affected their own burial sites. Slave owners sold the bodies of their deceased chattel to medical schools for anatomic dissection. Stories of the "night doctors" buying and stealing bodies became part of African American folklore traditions. The physical and documentary evidence demonstrates the disproportionate use of the bodies of the poor, the Black, and the marginalized in furthering the medical education of white elites.

The good is oft interred with their bones

Two recent publications describe anatomical dissection in the 19th century and how in Great Britain the 1832 Anatomy Act regulated anatomical dissection. A current exhibition portrays the history of human anatomical dissection, the trade of grave robbing and murder to supply bodies for the tuition of anatomy in Scotland, and the enactment of the Anatomy Act 1832. The most complete versions of the exhibition will be on view in Edinburgh and Glasgow and smaller collections will be exhibited in other medical centres in Scotland (Patrizio and Kemp, 2006; Barnes and French, 2006). The two publications relating to this exhibition illustrate many of the items on display and describe in detail the history of anatomical dissection and the teaching of this subject in Scotland. Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer observed grave robbing in North America and the recounting of these and other abuses has been the subject of many publications (Richardson, 1988, 2001; Hughes, 2003). In a recent account, Helen MacDonald has described anatomical practice in 19th century Australia, where bodies of convicted felons were readily available as were those of aborigines and poor persons dying in hospitals. Her extensive researches importantly review the practice of anatomical dissection in a penal colony (MacDonald, 2005). These two accounts join many others in denouncing the early anatomical dissectors and their disregard for the sanctity of the body after death. The many publications describing the scandals of anatomical dissection seldom emphasize the benefits of anatomical knowledge so patiently acquired over centuries. And whilst the 1832 Act regulated and assisted human anatomical dissection, the complexity of the Human Tissue Act 2004 will restrict the performance of necropsies and hinder pathology research especially of diseases of the brain. Modern anatomical teaching began in Bologna, when Mondinus (Mondino de’Luzzi, 1270–1326) began public human dissections in …

Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire (review)

Reviewed by: Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire Louis H. Feldman Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire, edited by John M. G. Barclay. Library of Second Temple Studies, 45. London: T & T Clark International, 2004. 161 pp. $49.95. This is a collection of six essays originally presented at a conference at the University of Glasglow in 2001. They are built around three themes: local and translocal identities, clarity and ambiguity in cultural expression, and power and the politics of representation as seen in Josephus' essay Against Apion. As Barclay points out in his insightful introduction, these essays serve as a background for numerous global diasporas in our own day, and, in particular, dual identities of peoples removed from their original homeland. Margaret Williams, "Being a Jew in Rome: Sabbath Fasting as an Expression of Romano-Jewish Identity," boldly argues that the references in Augustus, Pompeius Trogus, Petronius, and Martial to fasting on the Sabbath reflect the actual practice of Jews in Rome in contrast to the practice of Jews elsewhere. Inasmuch as, however, rabbis from Palestine frequently visited Rome during the first century, we may object that it seems unlikely that they would not have noted and commented upon such a deviation from the rabbinic insistence that fasting on the Sabbath is prohibited. Moreover, nowhere in rabbinic literature do we hear that the Roman Jews or Jews in any other area had this or any other peculiar practice. Furthermore, Ovid (Ars Amatoria 1.416) and Plutarch (Quaestiones Convivales 4.6.2.671D–672A) describe the Sabbath as a day of feasting. We may suggest that the origin of the view that the Sabbath is a fast day may be due to the fact that the Sabbath is viewed, quite correctly, as a day of abstention from work; and the word nesteia (which means both "fasting" and "abstention"), as used by Strabo (16.2.40.763), who was not a Roman, in reference to the Jews' abstention from work on the day that Jerusalem [End Page 146] was captured by Pompey in 63 B.C.E., came to be understood as a day of abstention in general. Sarah Pearce, "Jerusalem as 'Mother-City' in the Writings of Philo of Alexandria," insists that there is no tension between the notion of Jerusalem as mother-city and Alexandria as home. The fact that Apion accused the Alexandrian Jews of having a dual allegiance, that a bitter pogrom that broke out when the Jewish king Agrippa I visited Alexandria in 38, and that, as Pearce notes, Philo himself (In Flaccum, 46) says that the Alexandrian Jews regard Jerusalem as their mother-city would seem to argue otherwise. Alexander Panayotov, "The Jews in the Balkan Provinces of the Roman Empire: The Evidence from the Territory of Bulgaria," commenting on new evidence of Jewish inscriptions from Bulgaria dating from a period between the third and sixth centuries, notes the acculturation of the Jews, in that while drawing on biblical tradition in the depiction of the menorah, the Jews often had dual names, biblical and Greek, and used inscriptional formulae reminiscent of the non-Jewish environment. But, as Panayotov correctly realizes, it would be premature to draw conclusions as to the degree of acculturation on the basis of so few inscriptions. Paul Trebilco, "The Christian and Jewish Eumeneian Formula," comments on the ambiguous language of this standard formula in inscriptions found in Eumeneia in central Asia Minor, which warns a would-be grave robber that "he will have to reckon with G-d." He convincingly concludes that it is likely that both Jews and Christians used this formula, and he suggests that this may indicate that there may have been close relations between Christians and Jews during this period, especially since we have evidence in the fourth-century Council of Laodicea that a number of Christians had adopted Jewish practices. James S. McLaren, "Constructing Judaean History in the Diaspora: Josephus's Accounts of Judas," theorizes that Josephus used Judas the Galilean and the creation of the so-called "fourth philosophy" as scapegoats, as a means of diverting responsibility for the revolt against Rome from himself and his colleagues and from Jerusalem and...

Garden Of Grand Vision: A Slum Journey – 1941

KATHRYN MEYER 36 GARDEN OF GRAND VISION: A SLUM JOURNEY – 1941 KATHRYN MEYER, WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY In 1941, Gotō Reiji (後藤冷次 ?-1945) and two colleagues, one a governmentsponsored linguist, the other a fellow Japanese police officer serving in Harbin for the Manchukuo authorities, undertook a detailed study of the residents of a run-down Harbin building called the Garden of Grand Vision (大觀圜 Daikan’en or Daguanyuan ). Their subjects represented the most alienated refugees of the disorder that had plagued North China during the early twentieth century. Over a year’s time the three men visited the building, recording details of the origins, livelihoods, and dayto -day dramas of the people living there, some of whom they came to know well. The survey resulted in a 295-page report called Daikan’en no kaibō (大觀圜 の 解剖 Autopsy of the Garden of Grand Vision) in which the officers described the desperate lives they observed.1 According to the Autopsy, people in the Garden scraped by, earning what they could through theft, blackmail, heroin dealing, grave robbing, and prostitution. Autopsy of the Garden of Grand Vision is a remarkable document. The policeman and main author Gotō had a gift for words.2 His descriptions of the slums of Harbin are graphic, often ghoulishly poetic. As one might expect of a member of the Japanese military, which at the time pulled the strings of the Manchukuo (滿洲國 1931-1945) puppet government, the report included language that described the Chinese and Korean residents of the slum in condescending and derogatory terms. Yet Gotō also brought a sophisticated understanding of the tragedies of his subjects’ lives to the document. He returned time and again to the conditions of migration and loss of community as causes of delinquency. 1 This article is based on Hinkōshō Chihō Hōan Kyoku (Hinkō Prefecture Regional Public Safety Bureau), Keimu Sōkyoku (Manchurian Police Bureau), Kanminzoku shakai jittai chōsa: Daikan ’en no kaibō (Investigation into the social conditions of the Chinese race: autopsy of the garden of grand vision), 1942, National Diet Library, Tokyo, Japan. The investigation detailed in the report was completed in 1941. 2 Katō Toyotaka, in volume one of his history of the Manchukuo police, names Gotō Reiji as one of three people—each with surnames ending in the character “tō” nicknamed “the three ‘tō’ group” (san-tō guruupu)—responsible for the investigation. He also uses Gotō Sensei as the main character of his short novel, Daikan’en: shōsetsu (Garden of grand vision: a novel) (Matsuyama: Ehime Tsushinsha, 1974). The report itself was anonymous. In 2002, however, a formal copy of the Autopsy of the Garden of Grand Vision was published by Harashobō listing Satō Shinichirō (19091999 ) as the author. After the war—and after spending time in prison—Satō became a professor at Takushoku University in Tokyo, where he is remembered as a gifted scholar and lively lecturer. Clearly it was Satō’s wish to keep his involvement with the report private while he lived. I would like to thank the anonymous reader of this article who alerted me to the 2002 reissue of Autopsy of the Garden of Grand Vision, which came out shortly after my last visit to Tokyo. In this article I have continued to cite Gotō Reiji, who apparently died at the end of the Pacific War as the report’s author. See Katō Toyotaka, Manshūkoku kenryoku no jittai ni tsuite (Concerning the actual condition of power in Manchukuo) (Matsuyama: Man-Mō Dōhō Engokai Ehime-ken Shibu, 1968), vol. 1, Manshūkoku keisatsu shōshi (Short history of the Manchukuo police), 195. Volume 32, No. 1 TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA 37 In spite of its rich content, the Autopsy was never intended for publication. When finished, a copy went to the Hinkō (濱江 Harbin Area) Bureau of Public Safety where it was classified “Top Secret (極祕 gokuhi).” After the war, copies of the report went to both the United States Library of Congress and the Japanese National Diet Library. In the latter, it lay buried among volumes of declassified records of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy. The nightmarish world of the Garden became public thirty years later through the efforts of Katō Toyotaka (加藤豊隆 1918...

The Knife Man: the Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern Surgery

Wendy Moore is a journalist and she begins with a racy story of the saving of a coachman's leg from the amputation knife. 'The coachman's knee' is the first of the sensational chapter titles, which include 'The professor's testicle' and 'The surgeon's penis'. But don't let these put you off: her writing style makes the book an easy and exciting read. Furthermore, for those of us greedy for details and explanations, the 70 pages of references and notes show this to be a scholarly and well-researched work. Ms Moore possesses not only the skills of a journalist but also those of a medical historian; she holds a Diploma in the History of Medicine from The Society of Apothecaries. The book takes you into the dirty, seedy and bad world of the eighteenth century; the world of John Hunter. What you find in him is not the scholarly stuffy professor you might expect but a cantankerous quick-tempered grave robber, an overworked and bitter army surgeon and a science addict who almost bankrupted himself with his obsessive collections. John Hunter's life style, we learn, was the inspiration for Dr Dolittle and Dr Jekyll and perhaps even Mr Hyde. Looking back now at John Hunter we tend to see a hero of progressive surgery. In his time, however, he was an irritant to many and frankly hated by some—a thorn in the establishment's side with only a select few seeing him as the great scientist he was. Moore uses the works of previous biographers carefully and well, in particular the writings of Jesse Foot. Foot truly hated Hunter; every negative point seems to come from his pen. I still see Hunter as a hero, but I can't wait to add Foot's biography to my library. That is in fact what Moore's book does for me; it makes me want to know more. I want to go to the newly refurbished Hunterian museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, I want to go to his brother William's museum in Glasgow and I want to read more about John Hunter and his times. If you have an interest in Hunter, medical history or the eighteenth century, you should read this book. Even if not, read it for the good story it is.

The Knife Man: The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern Surgery

Wendy Moore is a journalist and she begins with a racy story of the saving of a coachman's leg from the amputation knife. 'The coachman's knee' is the first of the sensational chapter titles, which include 'The professor's testicle' and 'The surgeon's penis'. But don't let these put you off: her writing style makes the book an easy and exciting read. Furthermore, for those of us greedy for details and explanations, the 70 pages of references and notes show this to be a scholarly and well-researched work. Ms Moore possesses not only the skills of a journalist but also those of a medical historian; she holds a Diploma in the History of Medicine from The Society of Apothecaries. The book takes you into the dirty, seedy and bad world of the eighteenth century; the world of John Hunter. What you find in him is not the scholarly stuffy professor you might expect but a cantankerous quick-tempered grave robber, an overworked and bitter army surgeon and a science addict who almost bankrupted himself with his obsessive collections. John Hunter's life style, we learn, was the inspiration for Dr Dolittle and Dr Jekyll and perhaps even Mr Hyde. Looking back now at John Hunter we tend to see a hero of progressive surgery. In his time, however, he was an irritant to many and frankly hated by some—a thorn in the establishment's side with only a select few seeing him as the great scientist he was. Moore uses the works of previous biographers carefully and well, in particular the writings of Jesse Foot. Foot truly hated Hunter; every negative point seems to come from his pen. I still see Hunter as a hero, but I can't wait to add Foot's biography to my library. That is in fact what Moore's book does for me; it makes me want to know more. I want to go to the newly refurbished Hunterian museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, I want to go to his brother William's museum in Glasgow and I want to read more about John Hunter and his times. If you have an interest in Hunter, medical history or the eighteenth century, you should read this book. Even if not, read it for the good story it is.

Results of the magnetic survey at Deir al‐Barsha, Egypt

AbstractThe site of Deir al‐Barsha (Middle Egypt) is well known for its nomarchal rock tombs cut in the cliffs and dating to the Middle Kingdom (2040–1640 BC), but the presence of a necropolis of the same date in the sandy gravel desert plain was seldom mentioned in the past. Part of this necropolis had been investigated at the beginning of the twentieth century, but no plans or detailed accounts were ever published. The tombs were observed then to be structures lined with mud bricks with shafts going down several metres. In 2002, when archaeologists returned to this burial ground, few of the archaeological remains were still visible on the surface, the area being pitted with deep craters left over from the earlier excavations. The objective of the research, which was to gain insight into the overall organization and social stratification of the cemetery, required the use of the magnetic surveying method. A series of anomalies was registered in effect and interpreted as the images of shafts and accompanying ground structures (circuit walls). Several of these features have already been verified in excavations. The magnetic study has also led to the discovery of a previously unrecognized dirt road cutting across the necropolis from the nomarchal tombs to the Nile valley. The research has also attested later post‐burial human activity: the magnetic maps have provided a record of several hundred of pits dug by grave robbers and not visible presently on the surface. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Artefacts, archaeologists and American Indians

Archaeologists traditionally have observed the style and technology of artefacts and used this to classify archaeological assemblages, describing the repeated association of artefact groups as a ‘Culture’. We continue to place overwhelming reliance on our ability to derive meaningful information about past culture from artefacts, yet the importance these objects had for the members of the cultural group (past and present) is not adequately considered. The typological approach sidelines the creative role of the artisans, we find out a little about their economy, gain momentary glimpses of their religion, but learn almost nothing about their humanity. Archaeologists tend to focus on the physical, technological or esoteric attributes of an artefact, while indigenous populations tend to focus on the object's ritual or social importance. This is most apparent in the treatment of funerary artefacts. Until recently, many American Indian tribal groups have seen no distinction between ‘grave robbing’ and ‘archaeological excavation’ it made no difference to them whether the dead were disturbed by looters or by qualified archaeologists. By involving indigenous populations in the design, practice and dissemination of archaeological research, we can add humanity to our study of the human past, and take a step toward a truly worldwide archaeology.

Modern grave robbers

What would you do if human bones were an essential part of your medical course but your university could not afford them? Three medics from Pakistan present some ways out of the dilemma The practice of robbing graves to facilitate scientific study of bones and cadavers is nothing new in medicine. In the early 18th century, Britain witnessed a booming trade of exhumed human bodies controlled by grave robbers when anatomy and dissection of the human body became an integral part in study of modern medicine. Because exhuming bodies was considered to be a sacrilege, grave diggers--also known as body snatchers, resurrectionists, or sack ''em up men--became associated with anatomy and surgery departments of medical schools. The practice still persists in many countries across the world, especially developing countries.1–5 In countries such as Pakistan, medical institutions may not be able to afford scientific tools, including bones required for anatomical studies. In Pakistan, anatomy and osteology form a major part of exams and carry a large percentage of marks. There's a widespread belief among students that if you don't have important learning resources your academic career may be jeopardised and without proper anatomical knowledge you are an “incomplete” doctor. However, bones in medical schools are in short supply, and there aren't enough for students to study.6 Medical faculties allow students to study bones only during routine hours and forbid students from taking bones out of the college building. Students therefore feel the necessity to obtain skeletons themselves, as they aren't able to understand osteology in such short spans of time to get a clear picture of human anatomy. As a result, students …

Tomb Robbing and the Transformation of Social Memory in Roman Knossos

Tomb Robbing and the Transformation of Social Memory in Roman Knossos

Jesus and the Ossuaries: What Jewish Burial Practices Reveal about the Beginning of Christianity

Jesus and the Ossuaries: What Burial Practices Reveal about the Beginning of Christianity, by Craig A. Evans. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2003. Pp. 168. $19.95. The discussion about the alleged James ossuary continues, even though the case against its authenticity seems to be quite clear. Nevertheless, the question about the relevance of early ossuaries and their inscriptions for our understanding of first-century Christianity and its writings is still open. In his new book, Craig A. Evans examines exactly this issue. After a survey of scholarly sources and some terminological clarifications Evans summarizes the importance of this enterprise for biblical exegesis. Several passages of the NT mention tombs, speak about burial practices, or presuppose that their readers are acquainted with them (see, e.g., Matt 23:27, 29; Matt 8:22 par Luke 9:60; Mark 6:29; John 11; Matt 27:51-53). Chapter 1 is entitled Jewish Burial Practices in Late Antiquity. Evans starts with Mark 5, the story about the man with an unclean spirit living day and night among the tombs. He asks what kind of necropolis ancient readers of this text would have imagined. In this context he discusses briefly several well-known tombs from Israel in late antiquity. He points to the fact that Jews, unlike their pagan neighbors, did not practice cremation. Moreover, they buried their dead, later gathering the bones and placing them in containers set aside for this purpose. This practice is called ossilegium, or secondary burial. Traces of it possibly go back to very early times, as evidence from the OT seems to reveal (e.g., 2 Sam 21:13-14; Gen 25:8, 17; 2 Kgs 22:20). Evans writes: One of the interesting features of ossilegium is that it likely reflects the belief that the dead are still with the living and, perhaps, still able to be of some influence. In other words, the dead are not completely dead, but are diminished and weakened. . . . They mutter as shades (Isa 8:19; 29:4) and feel worms gnawing at them (Job 14:22; Isa 66:24). . . . The idea that some life still lingers in the bones of the deceased may help us understand better Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones (Ezek 37), bones that are still capable of returning to a full life. (p. 28) Quite surprisingly, ch. 2 turns to several inscriptions that do not have much to do with burial practices (e.g., the Temple Warning Inscription; Caesar's Edict against Grave Robbery; the Theodotos Synagogue Inscription; the Seat of Moses Inscription, the Pilate Inscription). Of course, these examples are quite interesting for our understanding of first-century history in general, even though they do not really touch on the main question of the book. In chs. 3 and 4 Evans tries to illuminate several NT themes (e.g., titles and rank, professions and trades, philosophical and religious themes) and names with the help of burial inscriptions. Evans here mainly lists examples and points to the critical editions of the texts. When, for example, he discusses the word scribe, he writes: On Ossuaries we have 'Yehuda the scribe' (CIJ no. 1308) and, from Jerusalem, 'Yehuda, son of Eleazar the scribe' (Klein 1920, no. 19) and 'Joseph, son of Hananya the scribe' (Sussman 1994, 228; Rahmani 1994a, no 893). …

Using Early Chinese Manuscripts as Historical Source Materials

This paper tries to identify some important aspects for the historian's use of manuscripts written on wood, bamboo, and silk from the Warring States, Qin, Han, and Xin periods. Their relationship to received source materials in general is explored in” Origins,” which also argues for a heightened awareness of the archaeological origin of manuscript sources. Three aspects of this archaeological origin are then discussed in more detail in the remainder of the paper:” Physical Preservation’ deals with the natural and man-made forces that led (and lead) to destruction of manuscripts and a means to possibly recover some lost data. Special attention is given to the effects of grave robbing and to lists of funerary items.” Presentation’ critically reviews the characteristics of Chinese archaeological reports and of manuscript publications. Several formal elements of manuscripts and of their production process are listed which may be useful to analyze manuscript texts as well as to make aware of certain features that their transcription may conceal.” Selection’ tries to find possible reasons why the ancients have put texts into tombs at all and why they might have done so only after intentionally shortening or damaging these texts or withholding others that could have been entombed, too. In this connection, the concepts of mingqi 明器 and yong 俑 (two types of funerary artifacts) are discussed. Throughout the paper, numerous examples of archaeological as well as traditional provenance are given and keyed to my database of” Early Chinese Manuscripts” (Early China 23/24 [1998–1999] and Early China website, http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/earlychina/res/databases/decm/). An” Appendix’ provides a classification scheme for manuscripts from tombs.

Our Corpses, Our Selves: Anatomy and Identity in American Society

In 1884, when twenty-three-year-old Hannah Stout died of a rare disease, her family was afraid to bury her in local cemetery. They knew that doctors frequently engaged in grave robbing, or paid others to do so for them. And they were certain that doctors would be particularly anxious to obtain Hannah's body for dissection or public exhibition because of unusual nature of her disease. To thwart potential grave robbers, family buried Hannah just outside their Indiana farmhouse, where they could keep a close watch on corpse. As Michael Sappol points out in A Traffic of Dead Bodies, this story reveals two important points about anatomy and nineteenthcentury American culture and society. First, it suggests that dead body had become an important commodity for nineteenth-century medical students and doctors who wished to learn anatomy. Second, fact that families went to such lengths to protect corpses of their relatives suggests that dead body held great meaning for nineteenth-century Americans; it had become part of An insult or injury to a corpse became an insult to that person's identity. The dead body, then, became an important commodity at precisely same moment that new concepts of self suggested that dead bodies should be outside and protected from marketplace. It was in this context, Sappol argues, that anatomy and dissection became important and highly contentious topics in nineteenth-century America. Sappol uses these two intertwined themes-the medical profession's focus on anatomy and Americans' newly anatomical understanding of selfhoodto shed light on two major topics in nineteenth-century American history: professionalization of medicine and creation of modern self. Specifically, Sappol's intent is to explore ways in which the anatomical acquisition, dissection, and representation of bodies ... contributed to making of professional, classed, sexual, racial, national, and speciated selves (p. 1).

From Grave Robbing to Gifting: Cadaver Supply in the United States

From Grave Robbing to Gifting: Cadaver Supply in the United States

ON THE COVERDissecting Gross AnatomyFrom Theater to LaboratoryThe Changing Role of Dissection in Medical EducationArt, Anatomy, Learning, and LivingFrom Grave Robbing to Gifting: Cadaver Supply in the United StatesIdentification/Chief Complaint

ON THE COVERDissecting Gross AnatomyFrom Theater to LaboratoryThe Changing Role of Dissection in Medical EducationArt, Anatomy, Learning, and LivingFrom Grave Robbing to Gifting: Cadaver Supply in the United StatesIdentification/Chief Complaint

From Grave Robbing to Gifting: Cadaver Supply in the United States

From Grave Robbing to Gifting: Cadaver Supply in the United States

Panakhtemipet Et Ses Complices (à Propos Du Papyrus Bm Ea 10054, R° 2, 1–5)

P. BM 10054 preserves the testimony of a number of tomb robbers. For col. 2 of the recto, some fragments unknown to Peet and hitherto unedited confirm that the passage records the deposition of the fisherman Panakhtemipet. His participation in two separate episodes of robbery, which are not likely to have been far apart in time, argues in favour of a revision of the chronology of the end of the New Kingdom and especially of the period of wḥm mswt.

Art macabre: Resurrectionists and anatomists

The teaching of anatomy in England and Scotland from the 16th to the 19th centuries was carried out by the Companies of Barber Surgeons and also there were a number of private schools. The only sources of material for dissection and study were the gallows or the grave and the supply from the former was limited by law. Therefore the latter became the source of a saleable commodity, and so the profession of grave robbing became established. The taking of bodies was abhorrent to the populace, fights and riots would sometimes occur and public outrage was directed towards anatomists. The passing of the Anatomy Act of 1832 helped bring an end to the grisly business of snatching bodies, but the supply of material for study still remained a problem. In the 1920s there was a change in public attitude toward dissection which resulted in an increase in the donation of bodies.

Art macabre: Resurrectionists and anatomists

The teaching of anatomy in England and Scotland from the 16th to the 19th centuries was carried out by the Companies of Barber Surgeons and also there were a number of private schools. The only sources of material for dissection and study were the gallows or the grave and the supply from the former was limited by law. Therefore the latter became the source of a saleable commodity, and so the profession of grave robbing became established. The taking of bodies was abhorrent to the populace, fights and riots would sometimes occur and public outrage was directed towards anatomists. The passing of the Anatomy Act of 1832 helped bring an end to the grisly business of snatching bodies, but the supply of material for study still remained a problem. In the 1920s there was a change in public attitude toward dissection which resulted in an increase in the donation of bodies.