Dying for Victorian Medicine English Anatomy and its Trade in the Dead Poor, c.1834 - 1929

The first book to provide a detailed analysis of the body-trafficking networks of the dead poor that underpinned the expansion of medical education from Victorian times. With an even-handed approach to the business of anatomy, Hurren uses remarkable case histories which still echo a vibrant body-business on the internet today in a biomedical age.

ELIZABETH T. HURRENReader in the History of Medicine at Oxford Brookes University, UK. She is a leading expert on the history of anatomy and the body, poverty and welfare.

'Hurren takes up where Richardson left off to explore the demography, geography, culture, finance and socioeconomic dimensions of dissection. She successfully combines elements of the storyteller with penetrating historical insights to chart the growing complexities of the trade in cadavers after 1832. The result is a groundbreaking and exciting study of the dissected as 'matter out of place' that never loses sight of the poor or of the fear and impact of dissection.'
- Keir Waddington, Cardiff University, UK