Dissecting the Criminal Corpse: Staging Post-Execution Punishment in Early Modern England

Abstract

Those convicted of homicide were hanged on the public gallows before being dissected under the Murder Act in Georgian England. Yet, from 1752, whether criminals actually died on the hanging tree or in the dissection room remained a medical mystery in early modern society. Dissecting the Criminal Corpse takes issue with the historical cliche of corpses dangling from the hangman s rope in crime studies. Some convicted murderers did survive execution in early modern England. Establishing medical death in the heart-lungs-brain was a physical enigma. Criminals had large bull-necks, strong willpowers, and hearty survival instincts. Extreme hypothermia often disguised coma in a prisoner hanged in the winter cold. The youngest and fittest were capable of reviving on the dissection table. Many died under the lancet. Capital legislation disguised a complex medical choreography that surgeons staged. They broke the Hippocratic Oath by executing the Dangerous Dead across England from 1752 until 1832. This book is open access under a CC-BY license." Dedication; Contents; List of Tables; List of Figures; List of Illustrations; List of Maps; Abbreviations; Acknowledgements; Preface; Notes; Part I: Introduction; Chapter 1: The Condemned Body Leaving the Courtroom; 'Reculer pour mieux sauter'5: Stepping Back, To Set Forth; Cogi qui potest nescit mori49: S/He Who Can Be Forced, Has Not Learned How To Die; Notes; Chapter 2: Becoming Really Dead: Dying by Degrees; Introduction; 'Death: the Uncertain Certainty!'12: Accompanying the Departed into Medical Death; Dying by Degrees: Deliberating, Disguising, and Disputing Medical Death. Conclusion: 'I have been HANGED and am ALIVE'72Notes; Chapter 3: In Bad Shape: Sensing the Criminal Corpse; The Condition of the Criminal Corpse: Concessions and Opportunity Costs; Bull-Necked Bad Bodies: Medical Narratives on Trial in Sussex; Proverbial Bad Men with Bad Bodies: Medical Narratives on Trial in Surrey; Criminal Bodies in Limbo: An East Midlands Medical Perspective; The Artful Caricature of the Criminal Corpse; Conclusion; Notes; Part II: Preamble; Chapter 4: Delivering Post-Mortem 'Harm': Cutting the Corpse; Introduction; Under-Door at Surgeon's Hall. North, South, East & West: Sending Bodies to the SurgeonsOutside-Inside: Cutting the Corpse; Conclusion; Notes; Chapter 5: Mapping Punishment: Provincial Places to Dissect; Introduction; Facts and Figures: Successful Convictions and Criminal Dissections; Dissection Days: 'Half Suffocated and Squeezed to a Jelly'; Conclusion; Notes; Chapter 6: The Disappearing Body: Dissection to the Extremities; Introduction; The Disappearing, Dirty Body: 'To Harrow up the Feelings'; Dissecting the Criminal Brain: The Nervous Energy of Original Research; A Disintegrating Corpse: The Science of Extremities. Remaining Human: Facing a Material RealityConclusion; Notes; Chapter 7: 'He that Hath an Ill-Name Is Half-Hanged': The Anatomical Legacy of the Criminal Corpse; Notes; Preamble Part II; Notes; Bibliography; Primary Research; Pre-1900 Published Sources; Secondary Research; Unpublished Articles; Unpublished MA thesis; Unpublished PhD theses; Index.