214 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



This institution was also involved in another affair which 

 borders on the unusual and may indicate the plight of the anato- 

 mists for suitable teaching material. Two brother students at 

 the medical college were accused of body snatching, in March 

 of 1834, by the people of Burlington. This implied that the body 

 was transported over primitive roads, a distance of ninety miles, 

 something of a feat in those days. John Daggett, aged eighteen, 

 and his elder brother, were arrested and brought before a magis- 

 trate who bound them over to the grand jury. Two indictments 

 were returned against each for "disinterring the remains of the 

 dead" (Waite, '45c). When the disputed body was returned, one 

 indictment against each was quashed by order of the attorney for 

 the state. Both were convicted and sentenced, on the second count, 

 to serve three years in the Vermont State Prison. The older 

 brother completed the full term, whereas the younger was par- l 

 doned and discharged after a little more than two years. The ; 

 latter returned to the Woodstock School of Medicine and gradu- I 

 ated in June, 1837. This is, apparently, the only case on record f 

 in the New England states where a student was sentenced to a ; 

 state prison. * 



In respect to this incident, the following letter is quoted from ;; 

 Waite ('45c) because it reveals the feelings of the 125 citizens ,^ 

 of Burlington who signed it: ; 



** (To the Faculty of the Medical College at Woodstock, Vt.) 'i 

 Gentlemen: i: 



The examination of John F. Daggett, bound over for a ? 

 trial at the next term of the County Court, recently a student in if 

 your institution, as well as very intelligible intimations from him < 

 since his trial renders it certain, in the opinion of the undersigned 1 

 and of this community, that the body of Mrs. Holbrook late of this ij 

 place was removed to Woodstock and is now in your College. Mrs. j 

 Holbrook was, and her family are highly respectable; and the dis- jl 

 interment of her remains has occasioned to her relatives a distress 

 which you can properly appreciate, and is universally regarded as 

 a vile outrage which will not be submitted to unless the laws 

 have lost their power to punish. 



"Information upon which we rely renders it probable that the 

 dissecting knife has not been used upon her remains; and the 



