Annual Allotment

Descriptions of the gross and microscopic anatomy courses distributed to first-year medical students, with class schedules, recommended textbooks, and the instruments needed for dissection, 1933-1934

By the early 1930s, the first-year students were given instruction in gross anatomy, histology, neurology, and embryology, and, in 1934, the second-year course was finally removed from the curriculum. Despite the improvements to the anatomy law in Massachusetts and a legal supply of cadavers obtained from the state institutions at Bridgewater, Grafton, Medfield, Taunton, and, principally, Tewksbury, the amount of available anatomical material remained insufficient for a growing population of students from the medical schools at Harvard, Tufts, and Boston University. The three schools received an annual allotment of the cadavers available based on the number of students enrolled, but the size of the allotment could vary widely from year to year, with 59 cadavers available in 1945 but only 27 in 1947.