No Peaceful Burying Place: A History of Body Snatching and Anatomy at the International Museum of Surgical Science
March 22, 2023 | 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
“NO PEACEFUL BURIAL PLACE”: Encountering Body-Snatching and Teaching Anatomy from a Lost Letter of Tobias Smollett, M.D., to Dr. William Hunter
This talk will focus on interpreting a newly discovered letter from the writer Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) to his fellow Scot, the celebrated anatomist Dr. William Hunter (1718-1783). This opaque letter, long deemed lost but now preserved in the Welcome Medical Museum in London, has been claimed as evidence of the author’s involvement, directly or by proxy, in the illicit trade of body snatching. As one who had trained as a surgeon, Smollett was well aware of the practice of body snatching, whereby anatomists employed ruffian gangs to bargain with the hangman for the unclaimed bodies of miscreants strung up on the gallows, or unlawfully to dig up corpses of the freshly buried in the dead of night. The talk will move from examining the letter to a broader discussion of the advent of the teaching of practical anatomy in the mid 18th century.
This talk will focus on interpreting a newly discovered letter from the writer Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) to his fellow Scot, the celebrated anatomist Dr. William Hunter (1718-1783). This opaque letter, long deemed lost but now preserved in the Welcome Medical Museum in London, has been claimed as evidence of the author’s involvement, directly or by proxy, in the illicit trade of body snatching. As one who had trained as a surgeon, Smollett was well aware of the practice of body snatching, whereby anatomists employed ruffian gangs to bargain with the hangman for the unclaimed bodies of miscreants strung up on the gallows, or unlawfully to dig up corpses of the freshly buried in the dead of night. The talk will move from examining the letter to a broader discussion of the advent of the teaching of practical anatomy in the mid 18th century.
-
Location
International Museum of Surgical Science
1524 N. Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60610 Fees/Admission
Free with Museum AdmissionRSVP
YES, SIGN ME UP
