The 1832 Anatomy Act had been largely ignored within the field of medical history until the groundbreaking work of Ruth Richardson. Richardson is largely credited with ‘rediscovering’ the Act in 1988, yet despite her assertion that there was much to add to her work, there have been surprisingly few further studies in the succeeding twenty-five years dealing with the passing and impact of the Act, particularly within a regional context. This book examines the impact of the 1832 Anatomy Act on the study of anatomy within two very different regions and institutions. The choice of Manchester and Oxford provides a contrast between a new and ambitious provincial centre with arguably the first fully organized provincial medical school and a highly traditional centre for medical training based on university education.

An examination of the working of the Anatomy Act illuminates the supply of bodies which was vital for the study of anatomy, a discipline that was becoming the lynchpin of surgical training from the eighteenth century. An intimate understanding of anatomy and skill in dissection were considered to be important components in the education of surgeons, and then of all medical men, and was central to their claim for professional status. Anatomy became the dominant discipline in medical education in the nineteenth century.