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1 results

  • 5 - The Murder Act: Anatomization, 1752–1832

  • Simon Devereaux, University of Victoria, British Columbia
  • Book:
    Execution, State and Society in England, 1660–1900
    Published online:
    12 October 2023
    Print publication:
    26 October 2023, pp 141-196

  • Summary

    The Murder Act of 1752 imposed post-mortem dissection as the primary punishment for all people convicted of that crime. Recent historians have viewed this statute as strikingly regressive. In fact, its purposes and effects were notably humane. It dramatically reduced the number of dissections imposed on criminal bodies in London. By almost entirely confining dissection to murder alone, it substantially ended riots at executions. And, in ensuring a legal supply of “subjects” to anatomists, it helped make surgery as swift as possible in an age before reliable anaesthesia. On the other hand, public anatomization of dead killers was so uncommon that it seems likely to have inspired fascination rather than deterrent horror. And, in failing to supply enough “subjects,” the Act inspired epidemical levels of grave robbery, finally coming undone when enterprising monsters resorted to murder itself in meeting the needs of anatomists, who now seemed complicit in such crimes.