Report of the Select Committee of the House of Representatives ... Legalizing the Study of Anatomy

Report of the Select Committee of the House of Representatives ... Legalizing the Study of Anatomy

Harvard Medical School

Massachusetts. General Court. House of Representatives.

Congressional committee reports

This state report provided key arguments for the repeal of the 1815 Act to Protect the Sepulchres of the Dead by the Massachusetts Legislature and so legalized dissection of human bodies for anatomical study. Dr. John Collins Warren, stressing the essential importance of dissection, stated, “Some may perhaps believe that books, and plates, and wax figures convey adequate notions of the human structure. This is an opinion natural enough, but entirely erroneous…. It is probable that a single square inch of the human body contains more parts distinctly organized, than could be represented by all the wax figures which ingenuity has ever contrived.” This copy belonged to Dr. John Collins Warren.

First page of the report of the Massachusetts Legislature legalizing the dissection of human bodies

Massachusetts. General Court. House of Representatives.

Dutton and Wentworth

1831

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Harvard Medical Library Rare Books Collection (QM40.M4 1831)

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excerpt (1 page)

English

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DigID0002413

From the Collections of the Harvard Medical Library