Nineteenth- and twentieth-century anatomists and physicians at American medical schools and medical societies amassed collections of human remains, harvesting tissues from their living patients or exhuming graveyards, buying from dealers, or trading remains with interlocutors near and far. Anatomy collections—which often harbored examples of ‘healthy’ bodies—and pathology collections—which housed ‘diseased’ or ‘deformed’ ones—benefitted doctors in ways both pedagogic and reputational. Students consulted these collections to learn about the body; doctors burnished their bonafides by demonstrating diagnostic and surgical skills. Historically, physicians rarely considered the desires of any person whose body they added to a collection. Current stewards often think about them differently, and the American Association for Anatomy
issued recommendations for these ‘legacy collections’ last year. In this roundtable, presenters from Johns Hopkins, Yale, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia will discuss several case studies highlighting their work to re-interpret and/or return human remains in such collections.
The panelists’ work engages questions central to these conversations: how can we track the provenance and life histories of specimens that have little identifying information? Should we? How might digital tools engage new stewards of these remains? What does it mean to anonymize or de-anonymize human remains? How might contemporary frameworks like informed consent and patient privacy help and hinder efforts to steward collections? When and how can we discover possible descendent communities? What processes might be required to inform these communities about ancestral remains? How might we reframe the history of physician-patient relationships by accounting for collecting practices? Each presenter will emphasize different considerations and approaches to recontextualizing, [un]displaying, or returning human remains. We will additionally invite attendees to briefly share their own experience so that we can all learn from each other. We will take notes and create a resource about projects in progress and tactics attendees are using.
Chair email:
[email protected]Learning Outcomes- Identify changes in medical collection practices and interpretations over time
- Deepen understanding of current landscape of repatriation work or the recontextualization of collections
- Develop a historically informed sensitivity to patients whose bodies physicians exhibited as specimens (including appreciation of class, gender, socio-economic status, ethnicity, cultural, spiritual orientations)
The Roosevelt Room is on the 2nd Floor of the Genesee Building.From the guest elevators on the Lobby Level: Turn left before reaching the main staircase. Continue left through the Genesee Building façade toward the Fitness Center. Take either the elevator or the spiral staircase to the 2nd Floor.The Roosevelt Room is located above the Citizens Banks Freestanding directional signs will be posted throughout the route.
