Doctors, dissection and resurrection men

Grisly but fascinating exhibition at the Museum of London looking at the history of dissection and in particular where the surgeons and students got the bodies from.

I’d not really thought before that pre-anaesthetics  surgeons had to be very quick so they had to have bodies in order to be able to practice.

The first section looked at resurrection men who took bodies from cemeteries to sell to the surgeons. It looked at what measures people too to avoid this fate plus what happened when the resurrection men got greedy and turned to murder to acquire bodies. I loved the very vivid reading of a contemporary ballad.

Most fascinating through was the room looking at skeletons which were excavated in 2006 at the Royal London Hospital which showed evidence of dissection. There was evidence from the time that the hospital had robbed its own graveyard for bodies. My only slight worry was that as a chaplain at the time had fought to get all bodies a decent burial what would happen to these skeletons now. Fascinating as it was to see them and learn from them I was not sure a museum is the place for them.  

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