Doctors' Riot of 1788 by Andy McPhee: Hardcover; 248 pages / English
$29.95
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[Globe Pequot Publishing]
Throughout the seventeenth century, medical lecturers demonstrated human anatomy by dissecting a cadaver while surrounded by students. After the Revolutionary War, though, instructors realized that they needed many more cadavers to serve a growing number of medical students. Enter the “resurrectionists” – body snatchers. Resurrectionists were a cruel lot; men (almost always men and often medical students themselves) who would sneak into a cemetery under the cover of darkness, remove a body, and then sell it to a physician or anatomist – usually for around $100.
In April 1788, word of one particular body snatching quickly spread, and over the course of days, thousands of New Yorkers descended upon a New York City anatomy lab in a growing and dangerous riot. This book reveals the forgotten history of the so-called Doctors' Riot of 1788, along the way explaining the history of body snatching in the United States and England and exploring the moral questions.
Doctors' Riot of 1788 by Andy McPhee: Hardcover; 248 pages / English
$29.95