1788 Doctors' riot

Doctors' riot
	An Interrupted Dissection
Date	April 1788
Location	New York City, New York
Caused by	Theft of corpses by doctors
Casualties
Death(s)	6-20

Last updated August 16, 2019

The Doctors' riot was an incident that occurred in April 1788 in New York City, where the illegal procurement of corpses from the graves of recent deceased that resulted in a mass expression of discontent from poorer New Yorkers directed primarily at physicians and medical students.

The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2018 population of 8,398,748 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km²), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 19,979,477 people in its 2018 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 22,679,948 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

Body snatching is the secret removal of corpses from burial sites. A common purpose of body snatching, especially in the 19th century, was to sell the corpses for dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools. Those who practised body snatching were often called "resurrectionists" or "resurrection-men". A related act is grave robbery, uncovering a tomb or crypt to steal artifacts or personal effects that had been buried with the deceased; however, grave robbery differs from body snatching in that grave robbing does not involve stealing the corpse itself.

A physician, medical practitioner, medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a professional who practises medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining, or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease, injury, and other physical and mental impairments. Physicians may focus their practice on certain disease categories, types of patients, and methods of treatment—known as specialities—or they may assume responsibility for the provision of continuing and comprehensive medical care to individuals, families, and communities—known as general practice. Medical practice properly requires both a detailed knowledge of the academic disciplines, such as anatomy and physiology, underlying diseases and their treatment—the science of medicine—and also a decent competence in its applied practice—the art or craft of medicine.

Background

By the end of the American Revolution, roughly one fifth of New York City's population was black, most of whom were slaves. The construction of New York City, under both the Dutch and the English, was accomplished largely with slave labor. Due to their low social standing, the bodies of slaves could only be buried outside the city limits. Most often they were buried in a few plots north of Chambers Street, across the street from the Pauper's Cemetery, often with several bodies to a grave, in a site now marked by the African Burial Ground National Monument, then known as the "Negroes Burying Ground".

The American Revolution was a colonial revolt which occurred between 1765 and 1783. The American Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) with the assistance of France, winning independence from Great Britain and establishing the United States of America.

Slavery in the United States was the legal institution of human chattel enslavement, primarily of Africans and African Americans, that existed in the United States of America in the 18th and 19th centuries. Slavery had been practiced in British America from early colonial days, and was legal in all Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It lasted in about half the states until 1865, when it was prohibited nationally by the Thirteenth Amendment. As an economic system, slavery was largely replaced by sharecropping and convict leasing.

New Amsterdam historical Dutch colonial settlement that became New York City

New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The factorij became a settlement outside Fort Amsterdam. The fort was situated on the strategic southern tip of the island of Manhattan and was meant to defend the fur trade operations of the Dutch West India Company in the North River. In 1624, it became a provincial extension of the Dutch Republic and was designated as the capital of the province in 1625.

Both cemeteries were close to Columbia College, which housed the city's only school of medicine. Due to taboos associated with the violation of corpses, procuring cadavers for dissection and study was difficult, and many students and doctors would exhume bodies from the nearby graveyards, due to the socially marginalized status of their occupants. “Resurrection”, as body-snatching or grave-robbing was called, was the cheapest, surest way to obtain the remains of the newly-deceased, especially in the winter when bodies decayed more slowly.^[1]

A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians and surgeons. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, Doctor of Medicine (MD), or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO). Many medical schools offer additional degrees, such as a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D), Master's degree (M.Sc), a physician assistant program, or other post-secondary education.

A cadaver is a dead human body that is used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Students in medical school study and dissect cadavers as a part of their education. Others who study cadavers include archaeologists and artists.

Grave robbery, tomb robbing, or tomb raiding is the act of uncovering a grave, tomb or crypt to steal matter. It is usually perpetrated to take and profit from valuable artifacts or personal effects. A related act is body snatching, a term denoting the contested or unlawful taking of a body, which can be extended to the unlawful taking of organs alone. These acts carry two stigmas from the evolution of morality: selfishness and psychological trauma to which the behavioural immune system adds the stigma of disgust to those coming into contact with part-decayed, particularly human, bodies.

The riot

Because there was, at the time, no known method of preserving an entire corpse, thefts were performed hastily, often in winter to slow the rate of decomposition. In the winter of 1788, the number of corpses being exhumed by students increased substantially. The activities of medical students and physicians, who were known colloquially as "Resurrectionists" in the Black cemetery, were noticed by a group of freedmen who, on February the 3rd, petitioned the Common Council to take action against it. The petition was largely ignored, and no effort was made to stop the unlicensed exhumations.

Decomposition is the process by which organic substances are broken down into simpler organic matter. The process is a part of the nutrient cycle and is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biosphere. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death. Animals, such as worms, also help decompose the organic materials. Organisms that do this are known as decomposers. Although no two organisms decompose in the same way, they all undergo the same sequential stages of decomposition. The science which studies decomposition is generally referred to as taphonomy from the Greek word taphos, meaning tomb.

The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of the City of New York. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs.

In April 1788, a group of children were playing outside the New York Hospital, next to a room where a student of the physician Richard Bayley, who was known to exhume corpses from the two cemeteries, was dissecting an arm. Bayley, born and bred in Connecticut, had received his medical education in England, where body-snatching was more common. There were whispers about him “cutting up his patients and performing cruel experiments upon the sick”.

Richard Bayley was a prominent New York City physician and the first chief health officer of the city.

The student, named John Hicks, waved the arm out at the children, telling a boy whose mother had recently died that it belonged to her. The boy ran home and told his father of this, who, after exhuming his wife's coffin and finding it empty, gathered a group of concerned citizens who marched to the hospital and began to mass around the building.

The mob eventually broke into the hospital and, after becoming incensed upon finding several bodies in various stages of mutilation, pulled Richard Bayley's assistant Wright Post and a number of his students into the street, where the mayor of New York City, James Duane intervened and ordered them escorted to the jailhouse for protection.

Wright Post was an American surgeon, born at North Hempstead, Long Island. He studied medicine for six years in New York and London, and began to practice in New York in 1786. In London he became one of favorite pupils of the revolutionary surgeon John Hunter. In 1792 he became a professor of surgery, and afterward of anatomy and physiology, in Columbia College. He visited the celebrated schools of Europe, and returned in 1793 with a splendid anatomical cabinet. In 1813 he became a professor of anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and was its president from 1821 to 1826. Post was one of the pioneers among American surgeons, and was long remembered as a successful operator, especially in the ligation of vital arteries.

A crowd of 2,000 people had gathered, and news spread of the horrors seen in the hospital, leading to widespread rioting, with the few physicians remaining in New York City being forced into hiding. A large group of rioters descended upon Broadway, searching for John Hicks, who was felt by the crowd to be the main source of blame. As they assembled in front of the courthouse, throwing rocks, militia and cavalry were called in to repel them. The riot lasted a few days, ceasing when Governor Clinton sent the militia to patrol the streets until a calm environment was ensured.

At least three rioters and three militiamen died in the confrontation; some estimate up to 20 dead.^[2] The protesters also destroyed all the available human specimens.

Effects

Public opinion of the physicians in New York stood very low for many years, and while some students were brought to trial, Hicks was not among them. Post-mortem dissection was considered an indignity to the dead and the city fathers even forbade using bodies abandoned in the rougher parts of the city. A year later, in January 1789, a statute was finally put into law in order to codify the proper treatment of corpses, with harsh punishments imposed for those who violated it. Anyone who broke the law would stand on the pillory or be publicly whipped, fined, or imprisoned.

The statute also permitted the bodies of executed criminals to be used in dissection, “in order that science [might not] be injured by preventing the dissection of proper subjects”. “Resurrection men”, professionals who used stealth and discretion, were recruited to replace the students and went on to control the supply of cadavers for generations. Throughout the 1700s, British law considered dissection as a worse punishment than death.

To discourage dueling, the Massachusetts General Court also imposed dissection as a threat by ruling that anyone who died as a result of a duel would be sentenced to post-mortem dissection and dismemberment. Dissection was seen as perhaps one of the worst things that could happen to a person after death.

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Posthumous execution is the ritual or ceremonial mutilation of an already dead body as a punishment. It is typically performed to show that even in death, one cannot escape justice.

The history of anatomy extends from the earliest examinations of sacrificial victims to the sophisticated analyses of the body performed by modern scientists. The study of human anatomy can be traced back thousands of years, at least to the Egyptians, but the science of anatomy, as we know it today, did not develop until far later. The development of the study of anatomy gradually built upon concepts that were understood during the time of Galen and slowly became a part of the traditional medical curriculum. It has been characterized, over time, by a continually developing understanding of the functions of organs and structures in the body.

Jefferson , commonly known as Thomas Jefferson University, is a private university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was formed in 2017 through the merger of Philadelphia University and Thomas Jefferson University.

The history of anatomy in the 19th century saw anatomists largely finalise and systematise the descriptive human anatomy of the previous century. The discipline also progressed to establish growing sources of knowledge in histology and developmental biology, not only of humans but also of animals.

Dissection is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause of death in humans. Less extensive dissection of plants and smaller animals preserved in a formaldehyde solution is typically carried out or demonstrated in biology and natural science classes in middle school and high school, while extensive dissections of cadavers of adults and children, both fresh and preserved are carried out by medical students in medical schools as a part of the teaching in subjects such as anatomy, pathology and forensic medicine. Consequently, dissection is typically conducted in a morgue or in an anatomy lab.

Cholera Riots refers to civil disturbances associated with an outbreak or epidemic of cholera.

The Anatomy Act 1832 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that gave freer licence to doctors, teachers of anatomy and bona fide medical students to dissect donated bodies. It was enacted in response to public revulsion at the illegal trade in corpses.

Gross anatomy is the study of anatomy at the visible or (macroscopic) level. The counterpart to gross anatomy is the field of histology, which studies microscopic anatomy.

The London Burkers were a group of body snatchers operating in London, who apparently modelled their activities on the notorious Burke and Hare murders. They came to prominence in 1831 for murdering victims to sell to anatomists, by luring and drugging them at their dwelling in the northern end of Bethnal Green, near St Leonard's, Shoreditch in London.

Night Doctors, also known as Night Riders, Night Witches, Ku Klux Doctors, and Student Doctors are bogeymen of African American folklore, with some factual basis. Emerging from the realities of grave robbing, enforced and punitive medical experimentation, and intimidation rumours spread maliciously by many Southern whites, the Night Doctors purpose was to further prevent slaves, Free Men, and black workers leaving for the North of the United States, in a prescient foreshadowing of the inevitable events during the early to mid 20th century, now known as The Great Migration.

An anatomy murder is a murder committed in order to use all or part of the cadaver for medical research or teaching. It is not a medicine murder because the body parts are not believed to have any medicinal use in themselves. The motive for the murder is created by the demand for cadavers for dissection, and the opportunity to learn anatomy and physiology as a result of the dissection. Rumors concerning the prevalence of anatomy murders are associated with the rise in demand for cadavers in research and teaching produced by the Scientific Revolution. During the 19th century, the sensational serial murders associated with Burke and Hare and the London Burkers led to legislation which provided scientists and medical schools with legal ways of obtaining cadavers. Rumors persist that anatomy murders are carried out wherever there is a high demand for cadavers. These rumors, like those concerning organ theft, are hard to substantiate, and may reflect continued, deep-held fears of the use of cadavers as commodities.

Resurrectionists were commonly employed by anatomists in the United Kingdom during the 18th and 19th centuries to exhume the bodies of the recently dead. Between 1506 and 1752 only a very few cadavers were available each year for anatomical research. The supply was increased when, in an attempt to intensify the deterrent effect of the death penalty, Parliament passed the Murder Act 1752. By allowing judges to substitute the public display of executed criminals with dissection, the new law significantly increased the number of bodies anatomists could legally access. This proved insufficient to meet the needs of the hospitals and teaching centres that opened during the 18th century. Corpses and their component parts became a commodity, but although the practice of disinterment was hated by the general public, bodies were not legally anyone's property. The resurrectionists therefore operated in a legal grey area.

Joseph Nash McDowell (1805-1868) was one of the most influential and respected doctors west of the Mississippi in the 1840s until his death in 1868. He is primarily remembered for his grave-digging practices, where he illegally exhumed corpses in order to study human anatomy. He is also known for his influence on Mark Twain, and was likely the inspiration for Twain's fictional character Dr. Robinson in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."

As anatomy classes in medical education proliferated in the 19th century, so too did the need for bodies to dissect. Grave robbery proliferated, along with associated social discontent, revulsion, and unhappiness. Conflicts arose between medical practitioners and defenders of bodies, graves and graveyards. This resulted in riots. Social legislation was passed in many countries to address the competing concerns.

The Law of 1794, derived from the Fourcroy Report of 1794, was enacted by the National Convention in December, 1794 in Paris, France. The law, stemming from a report from Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy, proposed the reorganization of the structure of medical education in post-revolution France and sought to lay the ground work for the institution of Hospital Medicine in France.

"An Act to Promote Medical Science and Protect Burial Grounds", informally known as the Bone Bill, was an 1854 bill in New York. Its purpose was to greatly increase the number of cadavers available for legal dissection in medical schools.

Lebanon Cemetery was an African-American cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania established in 1849. It was one of only two private African-American cemeteries in Philadelphia at the time. Lebanon Cemetery was condemned in 1899 and closed in 1903. The bodies were reinterred in 1902 to Eden Cemetery in Collingdale, Pennsylvania.

References

↑ Caroline de Costa; Francesca Miller (2011). "American resurrection and the 1788 New York doctors' riot". The Lancet. 377 (9762): 292–293. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60083-4.
↑ Bess Lovejoy."The Gory New York City Riot that Shaped American Medicine".2014.

Sources

Caroline de Costa; Francesca Miller (2011). "American resurrection and the 1788 New York doctors' riot". The Lancet. 377 (9762): 292–293. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60083-4.
Nelson, Scott (2015). "Snatching Bodies" (PDF). West Point Undergraduate Historical Review. 5 (2).

External links

"The Doctor's Riot of 1788", Historical article about the Riot.
History Box, The Doctor's Riot 1788, Description of the accounts of the riot
What Caused the Riot in Eighteenth-Century Having to Do With the Robbing of Graves and the Use of Cadavers in Medical Schools?, Video on the causes of the riot

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[1] Caroline de Costa; Francesca Miller (2011). "American resurrection and the 1788 New York doctors' riot". The Lancet. 377 (9762): 292–293. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60083-4.

[2] Bess Lovejoy."The Gory New York City Riot that Shaped American Medicine".2014.