The Lancaster Medical Book Club and the Dissection of Murderers

Personal communication with Timothy Wallington, honorary secretary of Bristol Medical Reading Society

Richardson R. Death, dissection and the destitute. 1988. Oxford: Routledge. See especially Chapter 2: ‘The corpse as an anatomical object’

Tarlow S, Battell Lowman E. Chapter 6, Hanging in chains; pp151-190. In: Harnessing the power of the criminal corpse. 2018. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Sailor D. The county hanging town – trials, executions and imprisonment at Lancaster Castle. (Undated) Lancaster: Challenge Publishing

Lancashire Annual General Sessions in Westmorland Gazette report. Saturday October 26th 1822.

Retirement notice by J. Smith, Saddle, Harness and Trunk-maker. Lancaster Gazette, Saturday May 11th 1816

Lancaster Medical Book Club, Minutes Vol. I: 74. Photo above

Goodier, Christine. Executions in Lancaster 1801-1910. http://www.lancastercastle.com

Report on the dissection of Alexander McKean at Manchester Infirmary. Carlisle Patriot, Saturday September 2nd 1826

Report on the dissection and phrenological analysis of Alexander McKean. Manchester Gazette, August 26th 1826

Report on Rachel Bradley’s execution. Belfast Commercial Chronicle, Wednesday April 4th 1827

Report on William Robinson’s execution. The London Packet and New Lloyd’s Evening Post, Wednesday September 12th 1827

Sailor D. The county hanging town – trials, executions and imprisonment at Lancaster Castle. (Undated) Lancaster: Challenge Publishing. See page: 49

Cameron DG. On the cerebral development of Henry Griffiths, a Murderer. Journal of Phrenology and Miscellany. 1825;Vol 2:180-185

Lancaster Medical Book Club, Minutes Vol. I: 47

Xavier Bichat wrote a number of anatomy texts in the early 19th century including Anatomie générale (1801) and Anatomie descriptive (1801-1803)

Royal College of Surgeons of England. Manuscript copy of Bernhard Seigfried Albinus’ Tabulae anatomicae musculorum hominis. Annotated by Thomas Howitt, RCSE Archives MS0049/3

Anderson GH. (Ed). The Minutes of Lancaster Medical Book Club. 1997 Page 5

Wessels, Q. (Ed). The medical pioneers of nineteenth century Lancaster. 2016. Epubli pp:40-41

Holloway SW. The Apothecaries Act, 1815: A reinterpretation Part 1, Med. Hist. 1966;10(2):107–129. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0025727300010917

Richardson R. Death, dissection and the destitute. 1988. Oxford: Routledge. Page 107

Ward RM. The criminal corpse, anatomists and the criminal law: parliamentary attempts to extend the dissection of offenders in late eighteenth-century England. J Br Stud. 2015; 54(1):63-87. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2014.167

McMenamin PG, McLachlan J, Wilson A, et al. Do we really need cadavers anymore to learn anatomy in undergraduate medicine? Med Teach. 2018;40(10):1020–9. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2018.1485884

Personal communication with Prof. James A. Morris 2023