The Scientific Revolution that developed in Europe did not always lead to the embracing of rationality. This engraving by William Hogarth from 1751 is a case in point. You see in this image a grand display of the dissection of a corpse at the hands of professional anatomists. Yet even though the endeavour might have championed the pursuit of scientific knowledge, the body carvers look menacing and gleeful. Indeed, the title of the artwork is “the reward of cruelty.” Dissection was considered a punishment after death.
Scientists wanted to study human anatomy but struggled against death taboos against mutilating a corpse. As a remedy for this situation, the British Parliament enacted The Murder Act of 1751. The law was not done with the betterment of scientific progress in mind, however: instead, it was to dissuade people from killing. “For better preventing the horrid crime of murder,” stated the Act, convicted criminals should either be publically dissected or have their corpses displayed in plain view in chains. The idea was that there was a fate worse than death, and only the worst sort of felons should experience it.
Source(s): “Harnessing the power of the criminal corpse,” criminalcorpse.com, Mary Roach, _Stiff: the curious history of the human cadaver_, p 41. Wiki commons for image. Wikipedia.
