The first book to provide a detailed analysis of the body-trafficking networks of the dead poor that underpinned the expansion of medical education from Victorian times. With an even-handed approach to the business of anatomy, Hurren uses remarkable case histories which still echo a vibrant body-business on the internet today in a biomedical age.
A fresh look at the complex question of outdoor poor relief in the nineteenth century.
Those convicted of homicide were hanged on the public gallows before being dissected under the Murder Act in Georgian England. Yet, from 1752, whether criminals actually died on the hanging tree or in the dissection room remained a medical mystery in early modern society.
This discipline-redefining study of secretive British medical research cultures after World War Two retraces the harvesting and recycling of bodies and body-parts for tissue culture and pathology labs, transplantation surgery facilities, brain banks, and dissection teaching spaces between 1945 and 2000. This title is also available as Open Access.