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. 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 nonmuslim 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
– 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