Grave dealings : body snatching in Philadelphia, 1762-1883 / Tim Dewysockie.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dewysockie, Tim, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Body snatching--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

Body snatching.

Grave robbing--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

Grave robbing.

Corpse removals--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

Corpse removals.

Physical Description:

xvi, 238 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Edition:

Paperback edition.

Place of Publication:

Havertown, Pennsylvania : Brookline Books, 2025.

Summary:

"In the 18th century the first American medical school was established in Philadelphia. Following the model of European universities, anatomical lectures were conducted with cadavers. But where did the bodies come from? Dissection was viewed as a fate worse than death, and the only legal source of “stiffs” was executed criminals. But there were not enough. As the medical profession and its need for “anatomical material” grew, a new, macabre practice emerged: body snatching. Body snatchers secretly obtained bodies from cemeteries and sold them to medical schools for dissection. But how did body snatching work? How did body snatchers and medical schools avoid getting caught, and what happened when they did? How did the era of the body snatchers end? Grave Dealings: Body Snatching In Philadelphia, 1762-1883 digs through archives to unearth the forgotten history of a time of graveyard patrols and anatomy riots, when the dead needed protection from the living. Philadelphia pioneered and became the center of American medical education and practice–and body snatching–in the 18th and 19th centuries. Grave Dealings explores the social, cultural, practical, and legal aspects of body snatching in America’s first capital city and relates it to the continuing ethical struggles that surround the treatment of human remains to this day"-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Gemmill fund bookplate.

ISBN:

9781955041126

1955041121

OCLC:

1395068552

Publisher Number:

90102328574