Body snatching : the robbing of graves for the education of physicians in early nineteenth century America
Also called "resurrectionists," body snatchers were careful not to take anything from the grave but the body - stealing only the corpse was not considered a felony since the courts had already said that a dead body had no owner. ("Burking" - i.e., murder - was the alternative method of supplying "stiffs" to medical schools; it is covered here as well)." "This book recounts the practice of grave robbing for the medical education of American medical students and physicians during the late 1700s and 1800s in the US, why body snatching came about and how disinterment was done, and presents information on: efforts to prevent the practice, a group of professional grave robbers, and the European experience
History
x, 134 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780899505879, 0899505872
24591202
The horrors of dissection
Post mortems and anatomies in the colonies
Dissection for education
Resurrection of the dead
American professionals
Murder!
The coming of the anatomy acts
The decline of the body snatchers
Popular literature
App. A. "History of the Anatomy Act of Pennsylvania" / William Smith Forbes
App. B. Reports of societies from the Cincinnati Lancet and Clinic, the Academy of Medicine on the Anatomy Act