The working of the 1832 Anatomy Act in Oxford and Manchester

Abstract

Eighteenth-century demands for improved medical care, especially in surgery, required detailed dissection of the human body in medical education. The rapid rise in numbers of medical students ensured that the traditional sources of bodies for anatomization, the gallows and body-snatching, could not supply demand and became increasingly unacceptable. The 1832 Anatomy Act attempted to alleviate the problem of cadaver shortage by allowing licensed anatomists to claim bodies from workhouses. This article addresses the impact of the legislation on medical education in the 19th century in two contrasting localities, away from the traditional focus on the metropolitan centres, by examining the body supply to the school at Oxford University and the private schools of Manchester after the Act. These two areas provide the chance to examine the contrasting experience of medical education in a traditional centre for the education of physicians with a rising centre focused on the education of surgeons.