HUMAN DISSECTION IN ENGLAND-A.D. 1510 to 1958 I53 



have escaped detection. Some writers believe that the number 

 may have been considerable. 



The offenders were judged guilty in court proceedings; 

 Bishop and Williams were hung on December 5, 1831, whereas 

 May was given transportation for life. The trial, with its attendant 

 revelations, constituted the last straw in the chain of events. The 

 legislators now hurriedly met to see what could be done about 

 the enactment of a satisfactory law which would prevent similar 

 criminal acts. 



A second bill was introduced by Mr. Warburton, which re- 

 ceived a majority vote in both houses; it became law on August 

 1, 1832 and since has been known as the Warburton Anatomy 

 Act. It had the following provisions: it 



1 . Repealed the law making it compulsory to dissect the body 

 of an executed murderer. 



2. Created a supervisory board of inspectors. 



3. Made any body, unclaimed forty-eight hours after death 

 available for anatomizing providing the person had not expressed 

 a desire, during his final illness to be properly buried. 



4. Allowed persons to will their bodies if their nearest of kin 

 did not object. 



5. Made obligatory the burial of the dissected remains with 

 religious services. 



With this enactment, body snatching and the resurrection- 

 ists ceased to exist in the British Isles (Bailey, 1896; Frank, '07; 

 Guttmacher, '35). 



Although the Anatomy Act of 1832 may have put an end to 

 body snatching, it did not serve as a cure-all for the cadaver ques- 

 tion. A scarcity of subjects has been reported at various times in 

 Britain: in 1887, 1914, and 1957. In 1957, the schools of Cam- 

 bridge, Liverpool and Newcastle were not obtaining enough 

 subjects whereas others were. The University of London needed 

 448 over a two-year period and got 474. The provincial schools 

 and Wales wanted 514 for two years and received 621. The supply 

 fell off between 1947 and 1957. At the University of London, 52 

 per cent of the bodies during that decade were bequeathed (Edi- 

 torials, 1887, '14; Foreign letter, '57). 



