Infant Cadavers Commonly Used by 19th Century Anatomists

Journal of Anatomy, the study is a pioneering look at how the changing anatomy of childhood in the 1800s was studied and investigated by British scientists. The research was carried out by Jenna Dittmar and Piers Mitchell from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology. The skeletons under analysis came from the dissecting room of the university’s Department of Anatomy. The dates of the specimens ranged from 1768 to 1913. A number of differences quickly became apparent to the researchers in terms of the type of tests that had been carried out on the varying age groups. The bodies of adults were generally subjected to a craniotomy, a procedure in which the top of the skull is opened with a saw. The skulls of foetuses and children on the other hand, were generally kept intact. Of the 54 infant and foetal specimens in the collection, a craniotomy had only been performed on one. Another surprising discovery of the research is that the bodies of infants and foetuses were often kept by anatomists for use as teaching aids or in further research. Adult bodies however, tended to be discarded swiftly. “Foetal and infant bodies were clearly valued by anatomists, illustrated by the measures taken to preserve the remains intact and undamaged,” said Dittmar, in a press release from the University of Cambridge. “The skulls appear to have been intentionally spared to preserve them for teaching or display. This may explain why so few children with signs of dissection on their bones have been recovered from the burial grounds of hospitals or parish churches, compared with adults.” According to the researchers, a number of historical factors could explain this surprising trend. Literature from the late eighteenth century suggests that smaller bodies were viewed as valuable teaching tools, making it easier for lecturers to highlight the intricacies of the circulatory and nervous systems for example, by injecting the entire cadaver with coloured wax. “The valuable and unique knowledge that could only be obtained from the examination of these developing bodies made them essential to the study of anatomy,” Dittmar explained. Legal factors could also explain the common use of child bodies. Although the Murder Act of 1752 allowed the bodies of executed murderers to be given to medical research, it had little impact on the growing demand for bodies, leading to a black market forming. Resurrectionists or body snatchers, who often obtained bodies by grave robbing, tended to sell cadavers by the inch, making infant bodies less profitable and thus more readily available. The Anatomy Act of 1832 let workhouses and hospitals donate unclaimed bodies to research. Waves of cholera and tuberculosis devastated the urban population during the industrial revolution, particularly infants, while workhouses were often lethal places for the young; factors that could have led to a greater number of infant bodies being donated to dissection. Potentially most significant, according to the authors of the study, was the New Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which ended parish relief for unmarried women and the obligations on the fathers of illegitimate children. Designed to cut the illegitimate birth rate, the law only succeeded in heightening the plight of unwed mothers, triggering a shocking outbreak of infanticide by the 1860s. “This left very few options for these women: the workhouse, prostitution, abortion and infanticide – all of which were life-threatening,” said Dr. Mitchell. As Britain progressed through the industrial revolution and its population increasingly moved to densely populated cities, the strains on the traditional family unit increased and the spread of diseases worsened. Meanwhile, for medical science, new ailments inherent in industrialisation and massive population growth led to a dramatic increase in the need for medical research and training. “Our research shows that the major sources of the bodies of very young children were from stillborn babies of destitute mothers, babies who died from infectious diseases, those dying in charitable hospitals, and unmarried mothers who secretly murdered their new-born to avoid the social stigma of single parenthood,” Mitchell said. “Poor and desperate women at the time of the industrial revolution could not only save the cost of a funeral by passing their child’s body to an anatomist, but also be paid as well. This money would help feed poor families, so the misfortune of one life lost could help their siblings to survive tough times.” Image courtesy of Nick Saffell]]>