Anatomical Dissection in Enlightenment England and Beyond: Autopsy, Pathology and Display

Excavations of medical school and workhouse cemeteries undertaken in Britain in the last decade have unearthed fascinating new evidence for the way that bodies were dissected or autopsied in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This book brings together the latest discoveries by these biological anthropologists, alongside experts in the early history of pathology museums in British medical schools and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and medical historians studying the social context of dissection and autopsy in the Georgian and Victorian periods. Together they reveal a previously unknown view of the practice of anatomical dissection and the role of museums in this period, in parallel with the attitudes of the general population to the study of human anatomy in the Enlightenment.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 There’s More to Dissection than Burke and Hare, Piers D.Mitchell; Chapter 2 Morbid Osteology, Andrew T.Chamberlain; Chapter 3 A Star of the First Magnitude, A. GaynorWestern; Chapter 4 Early Medical Training and Treatment in Oxford, CeridwenBoston, HelenWebb; Chapter 5 William Hewson and the Craven Street Anatomy School, TaniaKausmally; Chapter 6 Patients, Anatomists and Resurrection Men, LouiseFowler, NatashaPowers; Chapter 7 Dissection and Display in Eighteenth-Century London, SimonChaplin; Chapter 8 Barts and the London’s Medical Museum Collections, JonathanEvans; Chapter 9 Understanding the Contents of the Westminster Hospital Pathology Museum in the 1800s, Piers D.Mitchell, VinChauhan; Chapter 10 A Doorway to an Invaded Mind, KennethLo, Piers D.Mitchell;

About the Author :
Dr Piers Mitchell is one of Britain's leading biological anthropologists, and is also trained as a medical historian and anatomist. He teaches at the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology in the University of Cambridge. Piers D. Mitchell, Andrew T. Chamberlain, A. Gaynor Western, Ceridwen Boston, Helen Webb, Tania Kausmally, Louise Fowler , Natasha Powers, Simon Chaplin, Jonathan Evans, Vin Chauhan, Kenneth Lo .

Review :
'... for the gripping (if gory) details of the haptic and material history of anatomy, this book should be on the shelf of any serious historian of anatomical education or student of the social history of British medicine.' Social History of Medicine 'Scholars researching the history of anatomy will find much of this book a useful and welcome addition, particularly its focus both within and outwith metropolitan London, and the archaeological and statistical evidence of some common anatomical practices. For those working on the history of anatomy museums, Chaplin’s work on the Hunterian Museum and the ’museum oeconomy’ is especially important.' British Journal for the History of Science