WASHINGTON FREE BEACON:

Weekend///
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From learning to truly live to dealing truly with the dead, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb reviews Andy McPhee's The Doctors’ Riot of 1788: Body Snatching, Bloodletting, and Anatomy in America.

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The book’s title nods to the ‘Doctors’ Riot’ of 1788, a violent uprising in New York City triggered when teenage boys spotted a dissected arm dangling from a window at what would become Columbia University’s medical school. An enraged mob stormed the school and hospital, forcing doctors and staff to flee and hide in a nearby prison for safety. Order was restored only through the intervention of prominent figures like Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.

“Such riots were not uncommon in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the book documenting several in the United States and Europe. Yet this episode forms only a minor part of the narrative. Instead, the text weaves together the history of medicine and medical education in Europe and early America, the grim trade of body snatching to supply cadavers for anatomical study, and the contemporary use of cadaveric materials in treatments like bone grafts or dental implants. What unites these threads is the evolving procurement of human remains for medical training and, more recently, therapeutic products.

“Intriguingly, body snatching—often euphemistically called ‘resurrecting’—was not illegal in the early American Republic, provided resurrectionists left behind personal effects like clothing or jewelry. Bodies themselves were not considered property; only possessions were. Snatchers worked urgently against decay, as decomposition quickly rendered cadavers useless for anatomists. A limited legal supply existed: Executed criminals were handed over for dissection. ... The criminal justice system, however, could not meet the demand, fueling the illicit body-snatching trade. This era seemingly ended with the advent of embalming, pioneered by a French chemist and popularized during the Civil War. Before then, death was a local matter, but soldiers dying far from home required transport for burial. Embalming preserved bodies for the journey. As the author notes, when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865, his embalmed remains endured a cross-country train ride. Wars, as they often do, spurred such innovations.”