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Bodysnatching for Cambridge anatomy |
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Hostility to grave-robbery in Cambridge is revealed in an account of a riot in Cambridge witnessed by Charles Darwin, in about 1830:
“Two body-snatchers had been arrested, and while being taken to prison had been torn from the constable by a crowd of the roughest men, who dragged them by their legs along the muddy and stony road. They were covered from head to foot with mud, and their faces were bleeding either from having been kicked or from the stones; they looked like corpses, but the crowd was so dense that I got only a few momentary glimpses of the wretched creatures… I forget the issue, except that the two men were got into the prison without being killed.”
Charles Darwin, 1809-1882
© The Wellcome Trust |
In 1832, the Anatomy Act repealed the dissection of murderers, and requisitioned instead of dying in poverty. The legislation never worked as efficiently as the bodysnatchers, but medical men greeted it with relief as it decriminalised dissection.
The dissection of the poor was profoundly unpopular, and contributed to the fear of the pauper funeral, and of dying in the workhouse, which resonates in the memories of older people even today. Resistance emerged in Cambridge very soon after the Anatomy Act was passes, when in 1833 a bitter public meeting turned into an attack on the anatomy school, to liberate the body of a poor man, whose poverty qualified him for a parish coffin. The upset in the town caused such a severe shortage of bodies for dissection that for several years it was necessary to transport bodies to Cambridge from prison ships moored in the Thames.
Bodies are still sent to Cambridge from London in the present day – but since the establishment of the National Health Service, most are bequeathed by generous members of the public.
Words: Dr Ruth Richardson
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