Human Remains: Dissection And Its Histories - Couverture rigide

Macdonald, Helen

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0300116993 ISBN 13 : 9780300116991

Editeur : Yale University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Until 1832, when an Act of Parliament began to regulate the use of bodies for anatomy in Britain, public dissection was regularly carried out on the bodies of murderers, and a shortage of cadavers gave rise to the well-known practices of Burke and Hare. This book tells the scandalous story of how medical men obtained the corpses upon which they worked before the use of human remains was regulated. Helen MacDonald looks particularly at the activities of British surgeons in nineteenth-century Van Diemen's Land, a penal colony in which a ready supply of bodies was available. Not only convicted murderers, but also Aborigines and the unfortunate poor who died in hospital were routinely turned over to the surgeons. This sensitive but searing account shows how abuses happen even within the conventions adopted by civilised societies. It reveals how, from Burke and Hare to today's public performances by Dr Gunther von Hagens, some people's bodies become other people's entertainment.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Helen MacDonald is a post-doctoral fellow at the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Yale University Press
• Date d'édition: 2006
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0300116993
• ISBN 13: 9780300116991
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 224
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible