Historical Craniotomy and Autopsy Practices at the Milwaukee County Institutional Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery

Summary

The Milwaukee County Institutional Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery (MCIG) served as the burial ground for county institutions, including the coroner’s office and the Milwaukee County Hospital. This paper describes craniotomy practices in particular, and autopsy practices more generally, evidenced by the population from the MCIG Cemetery. In addition, this research attempts to distinguish between craniotomies and autopsies carried out by the coroner’s office versus the Milwaukee County Hospital to determine how these individuals came to the MCIG Cemetery. The attempt to differentiate which institution carried out the perimortem intervention is based on the hypothesis that the craniotomies and autopsies performed by the Milwaukee County Coroner’s Office were more standardized due to the low number of active coroners and the standardization of perimortem intervention. This is expected to contrast those carried out at the Milwaukee County Hospital by pathologists and local students, which may be more idiosyncratic due to their exploratory and pedagogical goals. Investigating perimortem interventions will not only shed light on historical craniotomy and autopsy practices, but more importantly, determining through which institution these individuals came to the MCIG Cemetery will aid in ongoing attempts to identify these individuals.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• People that no one had use for, had nothing to give to, no place to offer: The Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery

Keywords

Spatial Coverage