From Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers By Mary Roach

Ch 2. Crimes of Anatomy University of California San Francisco holds a voluntary 3 hour ceremony at the end of their anatomy lab Many other school’s do something similar Students sing Green Day’s “Time of your life” Students read poems Didn’t always used to be this way “Few sciences are as rooted in shame, infamy, and bad PR as human anatomy

Ancient Eygpt 399 B.C. King Ptolemy I encourages dissection He even came down and helped Society was already used to mummification Herophilus: “Father of Anatomy” Took things too far Vivisected ~ living criminals

Jump forward  England 18th c. Lots of medical schools, few bodies People believed in a literal, corporal rising to heaven Till 1836 only bodies available were those of executed criminals It was additional, post-mortem punishment Lots of death penalties: You could be hung for stealing a pig, but killing a man meant being hung and then dissected.

English schools needed bodies to keep students English schools needed bodies to keep students. Otherwise they’d go to French schools where dying poor at city hospitals could be used. Where to get bodies? William Harvey (famed for discoveries in circulatory system) brought his parents into class before taking them to the churchyard

Today Strict interpretations of Koran forbid use of bodies, even non-muslim bodies. Jan 2002, NY Times interview with med student in Kandahar reveals they’re still doing what Harvey did.

Alternative was worse Steal corpses from graveyard  Body snatching This was a new crime, different from grave robbing  Just taking the jewelry. Have the students do it At some Scottish schools in 1700’s: tuition could be paid in corpses rather than cash.

Instructors did it too Thomas Sewall Harvard Graduate Helped found George Washington University Doctor to 3 presidents Convicted 1818 of body snatching

Outsourcing By 1828, 10 full time, ~ 200 part time body snatchers worked from October – May Earned 1,000 a year 5xs more than average unskilled laborer. Could get a body in less than an hour

Dissection = O.K. Disrespect = Not O.K. intestines hanging like streamers organs getting chewed by dogs a spectacle Body disposal rumors Zoo Feed the birds Rendered into soaps and candles You didn’t want to be on an anatomist’s Christmas list

Where there’s crime there’s money to be made Mortsafes: Iron cages were placed around the coffin Double even triple coffins to keep people out. Anatomists often made sure to buy these for themselves

Robert Knox of Edinburgh Sanctioned murder for medicine A well respected man Bought 15 corpses from boarding house owner William Hare and his partner William Burke They’d taken to smothering alcoholics Knox didn’t ask questions

Burke was discovered 25,000 came to watch Burke hang, Hare was granted immunity Burke’s body was of course dissected His skeleton is still on display at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh Also a wallet made of human skin. Wood carving of Burke & Hare in Edinburgh

Dr. Knox was never charged, but he should have known. Displaying one of the victims, a prostitute in a vat of alcohol in the lab didn’t help public sentiment. A mob came and burned an effigy of him

It still goes on 1992 Columbia, a garbage scavenger named Oscar Hernandez is clubbed over the head and wakes up in a vat of formaldehyde at the local university. Columbian police were found to be selling bodies for 150$

From Literature Tale of Two Cities Dr. Frankenstein Pet Cemetary Jerry Cruncher spent his nights as a resurrectionist Dr. Frankenstein Pet Cemetary

Is human dissection needed? Huang Ti: father of Chinese medicine figured out what Harvey did without dissecting his parents Galen was a gladiatorial doctor who dissected apes instead. Thought the heart had 3 ventricles Hippocrates thought dissection was cruel, but thought tendons were nerves these guys got things wrong

Belgian Andreas Vesalius Dissected corpses of criminals & body snatched He figured out lots of stuff Why did we ever need anyone after that?

Indeed by 1993 we have the sliced images of a human and more models than we could ever use. Why not just have virtual dissection now? Some schools are moving that way.

Some feel human dissection is a rite of passage Doctors need to confront death That requires desensitizing as a coping mechanism. Maybe now that means training as a grief counselor Today there are surpluses of bodies donated to science. The public’s point of view has changed