INTRODUCTION 7 



initial outlay of cash or equipment. During the height of activity 

 of these unprincipled gangs, no family, even the most respected 

 and distinguished, could rest assured that one of its members, 

 who had passed away, would be interred with any degree of 

 permanence. It may seem paradoxical that the passage of the 

 Anatomy Act, in England, in 1832, was expedited, when events 

 got completely out of hand. In the United States, we have the 

 historical reputation of having had more emotional uprisings, 

 characterized by mob riots, as protests to human dissection, than 

 any other nation. 



Marked changes have occurred in the methods of teaching 

 anatomy during the past century, in the United States particularly, 

 since the privilege of dissecting human cadavers was legalized, to 

 the satisfaction of the legislators if not the medical profession, 

 This was due in part to the establishment and activity of stand- 

 ardizing boards organized by the American Medical Association, 

 by the medical schools themselves, by licensing boards and by 

 governmental agencies. The growth of new subjects and general 

 financial considerations were also important. The last has prob- 

 ably been a vital factor in determining the status of medical ed- 

 ucation although it is not mentioned much in academic publica- 

 tions. These are facets of the history of anatomy which are dis- 

 cussed in the heart of the present text. 



Gross anatomy, once pre-eminent, and almost the only sub- 

 ject taught in medical schools, with the assignment of many cur- 

 ricular hours, has necessarily had to integrate with the other new 

 ones which have blossomed forth and expanded during the past 

 few decades. The time which was originally assigned to it has 

 been whittled away and it is possible that the end is not yet in 

 sight for this eroding process. In an era where agitation is a 

 prominent feature of medical education, anatomy has not yet 

 found stability in the shifting sands of medical curricula. 



The purpose of this book is to try to bring the great mass of 

 knowledge regarding the role of human dissection in the medical 

 profession into some kind of coherent, historical perspective, to 

 discuss its signal events, not so much from the standpoint of the 

 individual structures which were discovered from time to time 

 during the renaissance of anatomy, which have been well-re- 



