17. Why dissect?
1. Best way to understand the 3D spatial
relations of the structures of the body
2. Although there are other ways to learn
(prosection, plastinated organs), dissection is
the gold standard
3. Assists in developing manual dexterity skills
4. Anatomy means ‘to separate by cutting open’
18. What makes a good
dissection?
1. Not just blindly hacking at tissue
2. A working knowledge of underlying
structures
3. Removing what is extraneous and
preserving what is important
4. Error on the conservative side
56. Dissection of human
cadavers
1315 First recorded public dissection, Italy
1543 Vesalius performs several dissections,
Dutch
1700 Limited dissection in England, ten per
year
1752 Murder Act allows bodies of criminals
1827 Burke & Hare murders to supply high
demand
1832 Anatomy Act allows unclaimed and
donated
Brief history, how is anatomy different than medicine? Wikipedia Why bother? Why important for physicians?
Burking - Knox was the dissector that bought the bodies from Burke
English: The skeleton of William Burke exhibited in the Anatomy Museum of the Edinburgh Medical School. "I am disposed to agree that your sentence shall be put in execution in the usual way, but accompanied with the statutory attendant of the punishment of the crime of murder, viz.- that your body should be publicly dissected and anatomized. And I trust, that if it is ever customary to preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved, in order that posterity may keep in remembrance of your atrocious crimes."