The Doctors’ Riot of 1788

A forgotten riot, an existential medical crisis

Throughout the seventeenth century, medical lecturers demonstrated human anatomy by dissecting a cadaver while surrounded by students. After the Revolutionary War, though, instructors realized they needed many more cadavers to serve a growing number of medical students. Enter the “resurrectionists”—body snatchers.

In April 1788, word of one particular body snatching quickly spread, and over the course of days, thousands of New Yorkers descended upon a New York City anatomy lab in a growing and dangerous riot against doctors and their students. In this fascinating history, Andy McPhee reveals the forgotten story of the so-called Doctors’ Riot of 1788, along the way explaining the history of body snatching and exploring the moral questions behind an existential medical crisis: Does the need for medical students to learn anatomy on cadavers override society’s demand for maintaining the dignity of its dead?

As the Doctors’ Riot boiled over, Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton and John Jay as well as Revolutionary War hero Baron von Steuben were called in to quell the rioters, to no avail. Eventually, the state militia was ordered to fire into the crowd, killing several and injuring far more.

The Doctors’ Riot of 1788 traces the foundational changes spurred by the riot, the formation of Black-only churches and graveyards, how the discovery of formaldehyde heralded a new era in embalming practices, what body snatching looks like today, and how the teaching of anatomy continues to change and adapt to new technologies.