Full text full text is available as a scanned copy of the original print version get a printable copy pdf file of the complete article 220k or click on a page image below to browse page by page. Providing both historical and contemporary insights death dissection and the destitute opens rich new prospects in history and history of science the new afterword draws important parallels between social and medical history and contemporary concerns regarding organs for transplant and human tissue for research. With the anatomy act of 1832 however the bodies of those who died destitute in workhouses were appropriated for dissection at a time when such a procedure was regarded with fear and revulsion the anatomy act effectively rendered in the early nineteenth century body snatching was rife because the only corpses available for medical study were those of hanged murderers. Death dissection and the destitute death with dissection and hanging in chains the short life narratives recorded in the minute books of the refuge for the destitute for individuals tried at the old bailey and sentenced in this way are reproduced here as a part of the associated records imprisonment miscellaneous