244 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



The people of the community were very much aroused on learn- 

 ing of this development and were backing the resources of the 

 law to catch the offenders (Editorial, '02). 



The editor felt that grave robbing was regarded with special 

 horror and detestation and that the medical profession must look 

 upon it without a measure of satisfaction and with disapproval. 

 The practice was doubtless excusable and necessary a century be- 

 fore when the law made no provision for anatomical material so 

 essential in the teaching of medicine. He claimed there was no 

 reason for it in 1902 and he could only conceive of the medical 

 colleges participating in such a sad business on the theory that 

 the Indiana law was totally inadequate to fulfill the needs of the 

 medical students. Until there was more evidence, he viewed with 

 suspicion any effort to fix the guilt upon his confreres in Indi- 

 anapolis. 



D. Dissection in Michigan— A.D. 1850 to 1870 



The state of Michigan has had sixteen medical schools 

 throughout its history, of which two survive. The University of 

 Michigan was organized in 1850 and as early as 1866, it had 525 

 students enrolled in its medical courses, which made it the largest 

 extant in America at that time. It was staffed by distinguished 

 teachers. The anatomical classes were so large that bodies had to 

 be shipped in from the outside. This was done by means of in- 

 nocent looking barrels labeled "John Smith, University of Michi- 

 gan, Ann Arbor, Michigan." Bodies were put in these with head 

 and feet on the bottom, legs flexed and breech uppermost. Most 

 were white, some were Negroes and a very few were Asiatic. 

 Only the professor of anatomy and demonstrator knew the source 

 of these specimens (Johnson, '23). 



