Fiona Hutton - The Study of Anatomy in Britain, 1700–1900

THE STUDY OF ANATOMY IN BRITAIN, 17001900

Series Editor: Lynn Botelho

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BY
Fiona Hutton

First published 2013

by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited

Published 2016

by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Taylor & Francis 2013

Fiona Hutton 2013

To the best of the Publisher's knowledge every effort has been made to contact relevant copyright holders and to clear any relevant copyright issues. Any omissions that come to their attention will be remedied in future editions.

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BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Hutton, Fiona, 1969- author.
The study of anatomy in Britain, 1700-1900. (The body, gender and culture)
1. Human anatomy Study and teaching England Manchester History
18th century. 2. Human anatomy Study and teaching England Oxford
History 18th century. 3. Human anatomy Study and teaching England
Manchester History 19th century. 4. Human anatomy Study and teaching
England Oxford History 19th century. 5. Human dissection England
Manchester History 18th century. 6. Human dissection England Oxford
History 18th century. 7. Human dissection England Manchester His
tory 19th century. 8. Human dissection England Oxford History 19th
century. 9. Dead bodies (Law) Great Britain.
I. Title II. Series
611'.00711'42-dc23

ISBN-13: 978-1-84893-421-4 (hbk)

Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited

This book started out as a thesis submitted to Oxford Brookes University. I am grateful to the university for the studentship which allowed its completion and to my supervisors, Jonathan Andrews and Professor Steve King.

I would like to thank the staff of the Oxfordshire Record Office, the Centre for Oxfordshire Studies, the Bodleian Library, the Central Reference Library in Manchester, the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester, the National Archives and the Royal College of Surgeons. In particular I am grateful to Judith Curthoys, Keeper of the Christ Church College Archives, Elizabeth Boardman, Keeper of the Radcliffe Infirmary Records, and Rini Banerjee of the Manchester Royal Infirmary for allowing me much time to examine papers not generally available to the public. Thanks also go to the people who gave their time to discuss aspects of the work or provide valuable references: Richard Dyson, Bill White, Julian Read, Mark Steadman, Sam Alberti, Ian Roberts and Rob Newton. I am especially grateful to Helen MacDonald for sharing her work with me and for her support of this book, and to my editor, Ruth Ireland at Pickering & Chatto, and to her predecessor, Daire Carr, who encouraged me to continue with the work at a particularly difficult time.

An earlier version of appeared as The Working of the 1832 Anatomy Act in Oxford and Manchester in Family and Community History , 9 (2006), pp. 12539.

I dedicate the work to Ian Roberts and our children, Joe and Ben.

The 1832 Anatomy Act had been largely ignored within the field of medical history until the groundbreaking work of Ruth Richardson. Richardson is largely credited with rediscovering the Act in 1988, yet despite her assertion that there was much to add to her work, there have been surprisingly few further studies in the succeeding twenty-five years dealing with the passing and impact of the Act, particularly within a regional context. This book examines the impact of the 1832 Anatomy Act on the study of anatomy within two very different regions and institutions. The choice of Manchester and Oxford provides a contrast between a new and ambitious provincial centre with arguably the first fully organized provincial medical school and a highly traditional centre for medical training based on university education.

An examination of the working of the Anatomy Act illuminates the supply of bodies which was vital for the study of anatomy, a discipline that was becoming the lynchpin of surgical training from the eighteenth century. An intimate understanding of anatomy and skill in dissection were considered to be important components in the education of surgeons, and then of all medical men, and was central to their claim for professional status. Anatomy became the dominant discipline in medical education in the nineteenth century. This work questions the rising role of anatomy in the training of doctors and then investigates whether the claims of legislators and civil servants of an increased supply of cadavers, and therefore attendant benefits for medical education, were justified. More specifically, against the broader background of the comparative and contrasting roles of Oxford and Manchester in early nineteenth-century medical training, this work seeks to determine whether the Anatomy Act was a key factor in the decline and ultimate demise of the independent medical schools in these regions, and to assess how successful local surgeons were in claiming bodies from workhouses and other public institutions.

The application of the Anatomy Act provides an alternative insight into attitudes to the poor by the ruling elite and wider middle class at the start of the nineteenth century. The book delineates the impact of the Anatomy Act on the poor and its relationship with the subsequent Poor Law Amendment Act in Oxford and Manchester, taking the analysis well beyond the confines of the metropolitan conurbation. It has been necessary to examine the perception and reality of the threat of dissection on the poor, especially those at risk of dying in the workhouse and the hospital, and how this was manifested. The Act allows us a limited means to examine feelings about the dead body and its place in religious observance and the role of funeral ritual for all classes.