Dying for Victorian Medicine: English Anatomy and Its Trade in the Dead Poor, c. 1834--1929 (2012)
Hurren, Elizabeth T. (Author)
Palgrave Macmillan
Physical Details: xviii + 380 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English
The first book to provide a detailed analysis of the body-trafficking networks of the dead poor that underpinned the expansion of medical education from Victorian times. With an even-handed approach to the business of anatomy, Hurren uses remarkable case histories which still echo a vibrant body-business on the internet today in a biomedical age. In the nineteenth century the business of anatomy was very profitable. However, existing in a Victorian underworld, its shadowy details and potential links to the Jack-the-Ripper murders were seldom exposed. In this accessible and vibrant account, Elizabeth Hurren brings to life lost pauper stories recovered from the asylums, infirmaries, workhouses, body dealers, railway men and undertakers that supplied the medical profession with dissection subjects. The details of those trading networks, corpse sales, body parts fees, railway transportation costs and funeral expenses have never been documented before now, yet this economy of supply in the dead underpinned modern medicine. In Dying for Victorian Medicine, Hurren allows us to look for the first time into the human face of abject poverty, working back in the archives from death to touch the lives of those compelled by pauperism to give up a loved one's body for dissection.
...MoreReview Durbach, Nadja (2014) Review of "Dying for Victorian Medicine: English Anatomy and Its Trade in the Dead Poor, c. 1834--1929". Victorian Studies (pp. 129-131).
Review Buklijas, Tatjana (2013) Review of "Dying for Victorian Medicine: English Anatomy and Its Trade in the Dead Poor, c. 1834--1929". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 125-126).
Review Cooter, Roger (2013) Review of "Dying for Victorian Medicine: English Anatomy and Its Trade in the Dead Poor, c. 1834--1929". American Historical Review (pp. 256-257).
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