Editing Dissection (section)

===Britain===

[[File:Unique body snatching headstone, Stirling, 1823.JPG|thumb|left|[[Body snatching]] headstone of an 1823 grave in [[Stirling]]]]

In Britain, dissection remained entirely prohibited from the end of the Roman conquest and through the Middle Ages to the 16th century, when a series of royal edicts gave specific groups of physicians and surgeons some limited rights to dissect cadavers. The permission was quite limited: by the mid-18th century, the [[Royal College of Physicians]] and [[Company of Barber-Surgeons]] were the only two groups permitted to carry out dissections, and had an annual quota of ten cadavers between them. As a result of pressure from anatomists, especially in the rapidly growing medical schools, the [[Murder Act 1752]] allowed the bodies of executed murderers to be dissected for anatomical research and education. [[History of anatomy in the 19th century|By the 19th century]] this supply of cadavers proved insufficient, as the public medical schools were growing, and the private medical schools lacked legal access to cadavers. A thriving black market arose in cadavers and body parts, leading to the creation of the profession of [[body snatching]], and the infamous [[Burke and Hare murders]] in 1828, when 16 people were murdered for their cadavers, to be sold to anatomists. The resulting public outcry led to the passage of the [[Anatomy Act 1832]], which increased the legal supply of cadavers for dissection.<ref>Cheung, pp. 37–44</ref>

By the 21st century, the availability of interactive computer programs and changing public sentiment led to renewed debate on the use of cadavers in medical education. The [[Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry]] in the UK, founded in 2000, became the first modern medical school to carry out its anatomy education without dissection.<ref>Cheung, pp. 33, 35</ref>