Structural Inequality and Postmortem Examination at the Erie County Poorhouse

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, two processes merged that resulted in the structural inequality of the poor and institutionalized: the reformation of social welfare and the passing of anatomy acts. In the increasingly industrialized United States, escalating unemployment rates and poverty fostered the widespread establishment of poorhouses. While developed as a means of helping the poor, poorhouses were also used as a means of social control and reinforced social and health inequalities. At the same time, in an effort to secure a steady supply of anatomical specimens to a rapidly expanding medical education system, and to alleviate the public anxiety associated with grave robbing, anatomy laws were passed that granted medical schools the right to dissect unclaimed bodies. In 2012, the skeletal remains of 20 individuals, recovered from the Erie County Poorhouse cemetery, exhibited evidence of either dissection or autopsy. The focus of this chapter is the inequality inherent in the formulation and realization of anatomy legislation that made it legal to dissect unclaimed bodies of poorhouse inmates. It is argued that these processes reflect the institutionalization of inequality and manifestations of structural violence.