Abstract
In 1801, Holden Chapel at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts was retrofitted for anatomical and chemical instruction and to house the Harvard Medical School. The chapel was used for anatomical teaching until 1862. There, faculty and students attended lectures, dissected cadavers, and studied a wide variety of specimens and anatomical preparations. In 1999, archaeologists recovered human skeletal material and other artifacts from a dry well in the Holden Chapel basement, a once-temporary trash receptacle that was filled before 1850. New osteological and documentary research on this collection documents aspects of the materiality of early modern anatomical instruction, including the roles of preparations. This chapter discusses this evidence of historical practices of anatomization, providing insight into the creation of medical authority, shifting ethical norms, and concepts of identity, personhood, and the body during a transformative period in medical education.
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Hodge, C.J., Rousseau, J.L., Morgan, M.E. (2017). Teachings of the Dead: The Archaeology of Anatomized Remains from Holden Chapel, Harvard University. In: Nystrom, K. (eds) The Bioarchaeology of Dissection and Autopsy in the United States. Bioarchaeology and Social Theory. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26836-1_6
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