Death, Dissection and the Destitute

Richardson, Ruth

ISBN 10: 0226712400 / ISBN 13: 9780226712406

Published by University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2001

About this Item

First paperback edition. Black and white images inside. Book is clean and tight without inside markings. Until 1892 dissection -- much hated and much feared -- was restricted to the corpses of hanged murderers.

Seller Inventory # TJ244912

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Death, Dissection and the Destitute
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press, Chicago
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226712400
• ISBN 13: 9780226712406
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

About this title

Synopsis

In 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.

About the Author

Ruth Richardson is a historian living in London.