This Week in History

April 16, 1788, The Doctors’ Riot occurred in New York killing about 20 people. There was general respect of physicians by most Americans. Though, in New York, an anger rose regarding a dark side of medical training. The acquiring of bodies for anatomical dissections at medical schools was unregulated. At this time, New York had only one medical school, Columbia College.

In the winter of 1788, newspaper stories appeared about medical students robbing graves to get bodies for dissection, mostly from potter’s field and the blacks only cemetery known as Negros Burial Ground. The stories pointe to one real truth – there were no regulations governing the source of bodies for dissection and medical students took matters into their hands, plundered local graveyards. Citizens revolted and the riot occurred. The New York riot was one in a stream of so-called “anatomy riots” that swept the U.S. in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Source(s): Smithsonian

Compiled by Bob Valen