Suzanne M. Shultz

Suzanne Shultz’s “Body Snatching: the robbing of graves for the education of physicians in early nineteenth century America” is the third book I have looked at for background on this unavoidable aspect of the history of medical education in the first half of the nineteenth century. The first, “A Traffic in Dead Bodies” by Michael Sappol was a post modern jumble of linguistic mumbo jumbo that I abandoned because, after several chapters, it never even approached the subject. The second was Harriet Washington’s fantastic book “Medical Apartheid” unfortunately for me the time period I was interested in was only a small part of her work.

Although Schultz’s work is short, only 118 pages including the appendices, and covers much more that 19th century America, it contained everything I needed to continue my research and more. She manages to cover, medieval art anatomists, body snatching in fiction and poetry, professional snatchers and medical students amateur attempts at being resurrection men, and evidence that body snatching continued in areas of the United States well into the twentieth century. If your interests touch this subject I strongly recommend this little book.… (meer)