Details
PEIRSON, A.L. Address to the community on the Necessity of Legalizing the Study of Anatomy. Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1829.
8o (208 x 127 mm). (A few minor stains on title-page.) Modern quarter cloth. Provenance: W. Parker (signature and inscription: "Written by Pierson [sic] of Salem, Mass. 1829" [slightly cropped] on title-page).
FIRST EDITION. Nine members of the Massachusetts Medical Society signed their names to this petition, including John Collins Warren, who was largely responsible for the passage of the Massachusetts Anatomy Act of 1831. "The early 19th century saw a proliferation of medical schools and a concurrent explosion in demand for cadavers. Grave robbing was rampant despite laws in some states forbidding the activity, and at least a dozen riots occurred between 1765 and 1852... Perhaps no incident, though, affected public opinion (and soon thereafter law) more than the infamous case of William Burke and William Hare of Edinburgh. Hare owned a lodging house where a lodger died in 1827, leaving a debt of £4. Hare and his friend Burke were paid £7,10 shillings for the body by a local laboratory, and were so impressed with the profit that they conspired to lure people to the lodging house, intoxicate them with alcohol, then suffocate them. Burke and Hare were caught and put on trial in 1829 after murdering 16 people. Hare turned King's evidence in exchange for immunity, and Burke was hung, dissected, and put on public display for a throng of 30,000. This episode inspired the Warburton Anatomy Act of 1832, which provided unclaimed bodies to anatomists, ultimately ending grave robbing in Britain. In response to the Burke and Hare case, Massachusetts passed the similar though less strongly worded Anatomy Act of 1831" (Tward & Patterson, "From Grave Robbing to Gifting: Cadaver Supply in the United States," JAMA Vol. 282 [2002] p.1183).
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FIRST EDITION. Nine members of the Massachusetts Medical Society signed their names to this petition, including John Collins Warren, who was largely responsible for the passage of the Massachusetts Anatomy Act of 1831. "The early 19th century saw a proliferation of medical schools and a concurrent explosion in demand for cadavers. Grave robbing was rampant despite laws in some states forbidding the activity, and at least a dozen riots occurred between 1765 and 1852... Perhaps no incident, though, affected public opinion (and soon thereafter law) more than the infamous case of William Burke and William Hare of Edinburgh. Hare owned a lodging house where a lodger died in 1827, leaving a debt of £4. Hare and his friend Burke were paid £7,10 shillings for the body by a local laboratory, and were so impressed with the profit that they conspired to lure people to the lodging house, intoxicate them with alcohol, then suffocate them. Burke and Hare were caught and put on trial in 1829 after murdering 16 people. Hare turned King's evidence in exchange for immunity, and Burke was hung, dissected, and put on public display for a throng of 30,000. This episode inspired the Warburton Anatomy Act of 1832, which provided unclaimed bodies to anatomists, ultimately ending grave robbing in Britain. In response to the Burke and Hare case, Massachusetts passed the similar though less strongly worded Anatomy Act of 1831" (Tward & Patterson, "From Grave Robbing to Gifting: Cadaver Supply in the United States," JAMA Vol. 282 [2002] p.1183).