Resurrectionists, Criminals, and the Unclaimed: Social Context of Cadavers in the 19th Century

Summary

Cadavers have been used to study anatomy and practice anatomical dissection for over 2,000 years. For most of this time, the use of cadavers was neither ethical, nor legal. In U.S. medical study today, most cadavers come from body donation programs largely resulting from the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA), first proposed in 1968. The UAGA followed a change in social context of cadavers. It introduced the body as property and provided individuals the right to donate their body following death. Before the mid-1900s, the lack of legal avenues for the acquisition of cadavers led to the 18th century practice of grave robbing. In the U.S., "Resurrectionists" exhumed and sold recently buried bodies to anatomists. To stop grave robbing, anatomy acts were introduced in the late 18th/early 19th century. Governed at the state level, these laws outlined which bodies could be obtained legally for use as cadavers. Most laws allowed the bodies of criminals, suicides, indigent, or unclaimed individuals to be used as cadavers. The Point San Jose collection offers an opportunity to understand the social context of anatomy laws during the 19th century and identify those people used in anatomical studies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22089