The Dark History of Medical Education

June 14, 2024

(WBUR) – When news broke last June that bodies donated to Harvard Medical School were stolen and sold, it instantly became a scandal. But roll the tape back a few hundred years, and grave robbing, body stealing and the ravaging of cadavers were commonplace in medical academia. From the founding of the first U.S. medical schools in the late 1700s, dead bodies were taken under shady circumstances for use by medical students in anatomy labs. And once those bodies arrived, they were often treated more like pieces of meat than human beings. (Read More)