In 1956, Alma Merrick Helms announced that she was bound for Stanford University. But she was not attending classes. This semi-retired actress filled out forms after learning there was a “particular shortage of women’s bodies” for medical students donate his dead body at the Medical College on his death.
As historians of medicine, we’ve long been familiar with the sad tales of 18th- and 19th-century grave robbing. If the medical students had to dissect the corpses, they had to snatch the exhumed corpses.
but there was little or no discussion of thousands Americans in the 20th century who wanted an alternative to traditional burial – men and women who gave their bodies for medical education and research.
So we decided to research this particularly physical form of philanthropy: people who really give yourself, Now we are writing a book on this subject.
robbed graves and killed criminals
the more and more medical schools opened Before the Civil War, the profession faced a dilemma. Doctors had to cut open bodies to learn anatomy because no one wanted to be operated on by a surgeon who was trained only by studying books.
But for most americansCutting up dead human beings was unholy, humiliating and disgusting.
According to the ethos of the day, only criminals were entitled to such a fate after death, and judges accelerated the death sentences of murderers by adding amputation insult after their execution. as life, The dead bodies of enslaved people were also exploited in death.either sent for dissection by their masters or robbed from their graves.
Yet there were never enough legally available bodies, so serious booty flourished,
unclaimed poor
To meet the growing demand for medical professor’s corpses, Massachusetts enacted first anatomical law, This measure, passed in 1831, made the bodies of the homeless poor available for dissection in medical schools and hospitals.
With more medical schools opening and serious-robbing scandals prompting politicians to act, similar legislation eventually took effect across the United States.
One of the most visible incidents occurred when the body of former Representative John Scott Harrison, son and father of both US presidents, was involuntarily exhumed. Ohio came to the dissecting table in 1878,
In many states, next of kin and friends may claim a body that would otherwise be destined for dismemberment, but only if they can pay the burial costs.
donated bodies
Yet not everyone shared the horror at the thought of being amputated.
By the end of the 19th century, a large number of Americans were ready for Let medical students dissect your body Before funeral or cremation. This apparently did not frighten or disgust them.
Doctors volunteered, but nurses, store owners, actors, academics, factory workers and freethinkers – even prisoners – were to be hanged. There were some who just wanted to avoid the funeral expenses.
Other Americans hoped that doctors would use their bodies to research their ailments, while others wanted to enable “medical science to increase their knowledge”. good of mankind” as George Young, a former wagon-maker, pleaded before his death in 1901.
cornea transplant
By the end of the 1930s, Advances in cornea transplant surgery Made it possible for Americans to gift their eyes to restore sight to blind and visually impaired men, women and children.
Together World War II Blood DriveHeartwarming stories about corneal transplants spread a fundamentally new understanding of bodily generosity.
as efforts to attract donors which will Pledge Your Eyes on Death Spread in the 1940s And in the early 1950s, anatomists also faced a new problem: the decline in the number of unclaimed bodies.
anatomists blamed a host of factors, Growing Prosperity in the Post-War Years, new laws that allow county, city and state welfare departments to bury unclaimed people; Veteran Death Benefit; Social Security death benefits; and reaching out to church groups and fraternal orders to care for their poverty-stricken members.
Dear Abby and Reader’s Digest
By the mid-1950s concerns arose about Cadaver shortage for anatomy classes, But media coverage of those who had chosen to donate their bodies began to inspire others to follow suit. Good examples include a Dear Abby advice column published in 1958 and a reader’s Digest article in 1961.
In 1962, Unitarian advocate Ernest Morgan published “A Manual of Simple Burial,” which promoted memorial services as an alternative to grand funerals. He included a directory of medical schools and dental schools that accepted whole-body donations.
Journalist Jessica Mitford denounced the funeral industry in her wildly popular 1963 book, “american way of death,” also supported that practice. She helped give science a respectable, even noble, alternative to expensive traditional burial.
In the early 1960s, Protestant, Catholic and Reform Jewish Leaders also came out in favor of donating bodies to science.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, some anatomy departments began to organize memorial services To acknowledge the donors and provide some closure for their loved ones.
Word of such efforts further encouraged whole-body donations.
letter of motivation
we reviewed dozens of unpublished papers donors from the 1950s to the early 1970s, in which anatomy professors encouraged potential whole-body donors to heroically view medical science as themselves. Early donors often expressed this altruistic vision, wanting their mortal wards to participate in furthering knowledge.
Until the mid-1980s, most medical and dental schools relied on donated bodies to teach anatomy, although a some unclaimed dead bodies Even today they make their way into medical schools. technology has revolutionized Anatomy teaching, as with the National Library of Medicine Visible Human ProjectBut bodies are still needed,
Images and models cannot replace practical experience with the human body.
where many Americans once Medical students are considered “butchers”“To exploit their beloved dead, contemporary students respect that some of these future doctors are their”first patientFor the precious gift has been given to them.
Susan LawrenceProfessor of History, University of Tennessee And Susan E. LedererProfessor of Medical History and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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