Dissecting the criminal corpse : staging post-execution punishment in early modern England / Elizabeth T. Hurren.

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Dissecting the criminal corpse : staging post-execution punishment in early modern England / Elizabeth T. Hurren.

9781137582492 (electronic book)
1137582499 (electronic book)
1137582480
9781137582485
9781137582485

London : Palgrave Macmillan, [2016]

English

1 online resource (xxx, 312 pages) : illustrations.

10.1057/978-1-137-58249-2 doi

HV8579 .H87 2016

364.66094209/033

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.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Online resource; title from PDF title page (November 7, 2016).

Palgrave historical studies in the criminal corpse and its afterlife.

Print version: 9781137582485

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