Death, Dissection and the Destitute: The Politics of the Corpse in Pre-Victorian Britain - Hardcover

Richardson, Ruth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0710209193 ISBN 13: 9780710209191

Publisher: Routledge, 1988

Synopsis

A richly fascinating compendium of everything you wanted to know about funeral customs, grave-robbery and the dissecting table in the 19th century.

About this title

About the Author:

Ruth Richardson is a historian living in London.

From the Inside Flap:

Until 1832 dissection-much hated and much feared-was restricted to the corpses of hanged murderers. Bodysnatching was rife. The 1832 Anatomy Act, however, appropriated instead the corpses of the poor, effectively rendering dissection a punishment for poverty. "Death, Dissection and the Destitute" reveals why fear of the pauper funeral so afflicted the nineteenth-century poor. Ruth Richardson's book opens rich prospects in history and the history of science. Her new afterword draws important parallels between historical and current concerns about the body, organs for transplant, and human tissue for research.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0710209193
• ISBN 13: 9780710209191
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288