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The Doctors’ Riot of 1788: Body Snatching, Bloodletting, and Anatomy in America
Body snatching sparks bloody revolt on the streets of early Manhattan.
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, medical lecturers demonstrated human anatomy by dissecting cadavers surrounded by eager students. After the Revolutionary War, however, instructors required vastly more cadavers. Enter the “resurrectionists”—body snatchers who sneaked into cemeteries under cover of pitch darkness to disinter corpses and sell them to anatomists for approximately $100.
In April 1788, discovery of one particular desecration sparked a massive uprising. Thousands of furious New Yorkers laid siege to an anatomy laboratory, triggering days of civic violence. Andy McPhee traces the profound societal ripples of the riot: its direct influence on framers of the Constitution, the establishment of separate Black cemeteries, the advent of chemical preservation through formaldehyde, and the eternal clash between medical enlightenment and human sanctity.
“A cogent account of a populist rebellion… broad and painstaking research, engaging the reader with every turn.”
— Mark Frazier Lloyd, University Archivist Emeritus, UPenn
“It’s like Hamilton meets Sweeney Todd. Ghoulishly fun to read.”
— Booklist & Reader Reviews
