This paper focuses on the idiom of anatomy in the late-Victorian era. It examines how English anatomists purchased pauper cadavers from poor law and asylum officials to train medical students. Following the passing of the Medical Act (1858) all medical students had to be trained at university for two years ...
(Show more)This paper focuses on the idiom of anatomy in the late-Victorian era. It examines how English anatomists purchased pauper cadavers from poor law and asylum officials to train medical students. Following the passing of the Medical Act (1858) all medical students had to be trained at university for two years in anatomy. Yet, this meant that universities need more and more cadavers to supply their students with sufficient research material. At the same time central government wanted to cut welfare expenditure in England. Civil servants pressurised guardians of the poor, who administered poor relief on behalf of ratepayers, to recover the costs of care in the community by selling the bodies of the poor for anatomical training. The research priorities of anatomists and the economic interests of the poor law converged after 1870 to the detriment of the poor. Anatomy departments of major universities, like Oxford and Cambridge, fearful of losing profitable medical student fee-income, went on body-finding drives throughout England. They purchased pauper cadavers from as far afield as Hull, Liverpool and Brighton. High fees were paid for the bodies of children and young females. This study outlines the geography and demography of this traffic in pauper cadavers for the first time. No-one spoke publicly about this traffic in pauper cadavers because it was so offensive to the poor and anatomists feared class reprisals. Indeed in many regions the poor did react forcibly and challenged the right of anatomists to purchase the bodies of their loved ones under the Anatomy Act (1832). Nevertheless, the paper demonstrates that despite popular protest late-Victorian anatomists developed extensive trafficing networks in pauper cadavers. Given the recent scandals about organ donation, tissue sampling and pathology procedures in the National Health Service, this paper has considerable historical relevancy. Many of the current research methods in pathology, the refusal to consult the general public about research procedures, a lack of organ registering, exmplified by the Alder Hey controversy, and the sharing of tissue culture between medical disciplines, began with the late-Victorians. Similarly, anatomists were keen to purchse the bodies of children. Today, many aspects of their work and procedures remain unchanged. The issue of class and health is as salient today as it was for the late-Victorians.
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