Parsons Family

At the beginning of the 19th century, physicians teaching anatomy in New England medical schools expected students to have hands-on experience with cadavers. As the only bodies that could be dissected legally were convicted murderers, this led to a lack of sufficient bodies for study. These doctors and their students turned to removing the dead from graveyards and cemeteries for dissection. The first medical school in Washington, D.C. was founded in 1825, headed by a Massachusetts physician convicted of body snatching, and made the practice commonplace in the area. This history of body snatching in the 19th century focuses on medical schools in New England and Washington, D.C., along with the religious, moral, and social objections during the time. With research from contemporary newspapers, medical articles, and university archives, topics such as state anatomy laws and their effects on doctors, students, and the poor--who were the usual victims--are covered, as are perceptions of physicians and medical schools by the local communities.

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Excerpt from Truth Espoused, Relative to the Difficulties That Existed in the Town of Manchester, Massachusetts, Between James Thurston, Minister of the Gospel, and a Respectable Number of the Inhabitants of of Manchester: And Which Occasioned a Majority of the Male Members of the Church, and a Respectable Proportion of the Parishioners to Secede From the Society in Said Town, April 5th, 1819 It will be thy object in this publication, to give a candid, 813 unvarnished statement of the transactions in Manchester, in rela tion to the difficulties that have taken place between J ames Thurs ton, the congregational preacher in the town of Manchester, and that church and parish and which occasioned a majority, of the church 'male members, and a large and respectable part of. His pa rishioners to leave the societyt and become connected with the Rev. Nathaniel W; Williams' Society in Beverly.' The charges as believed by the disaffected, are comprised in a general iview from oneato eight; together with many ofsthe attending circum stances, that induced as to believe that Thurston was a bad citi zen, a bad minister, and a' bad mah. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.