Cultures of death and politics of corpse supply: Anatomy in vienna, 1848-1914

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Volumn 82, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 570-607

  Buklijas, Tatjana ^a,b  

^a Department of History and Philosophy of Science ^*  (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Anatomy; Austro Hungarian empire; Death; Dissection; Funerary traditions; Medical education; Vienna

Indexed keywords

ANATOMY; ARTICLE; ATTITUDE TO DEATH; AUSTRIA; CADAVER; DISSECTION; HISTORY; HUMAN; MEDICAL EDUCATION; POLITICS; POSTHUMOUS CARE; RELIGION;

ANATOMY; ATTITUDE TO DEATH; AUSTRIA; CADAVER; CATHOLICISM; DISSECTION; EDUCATION, MEDICAL; FUNERAL RITES; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; POLITICS; RELIGION AND MEDICINE;

EID: 58149121484     PISSN: 00075140     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (143)

1. Ruth Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute (London: Phoenix Press, 2001, 1988); Karin Stukenbrock, "Der zersẗ̈ckte C̈̈rper": zur Sozialgeschichte der anatomischen Sektionen in der fr̈hen Neuzeit (1650-1800) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2001); Silke Wagener, "'⋯ wenigstens im Tode der Welt noch n̈tzlich und brauchbar.' Die G̈̈ttinger Anatomie und ihre Leichen," G̈̈ttinger Jahrbuch, 1995, 43 : 63-90; Werner Piechocki, "Zur Leichenversorgung der halleschen Anatomie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert," Acta Historica Leopoldina, 1965, 2 : 67-105; Helen MacDonald, Human Remains: Dissection and Its Histories (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). The transition and the supply of cadavers are also discussed in the histories of anatomy at German universities: Wolfgang Bargmann, "Zur Geschichte der Anatomie in K̈̈nigsberg (Pr.) bis zum Jahre 1860," Anatomischer Anzeiger, 1943, 94 : 161-208; Paul A. Jaensch, "Beitr̈ge zur Geschichte des anatomischen Unterrichts an der Universiẗt Marburg," Ergebnisse der Anatomie und Entwicklungsgeschichte, 1924, 25 :772-823; H. Koller, Das anatomische Institut der Universiẗt Z̈rich (Z̈rich: O. F̈ssli, 1926); Klaus D. M̈rike, Geschichte der T̈binger Anatomie (T̈bingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1988); Gert-Horst Schumacher and Heinzg̈nther Wischhusen, Anatomia Rostochiensis: die Geschichte der Anatomie an der 550 Jahre alten Universiẗt Rostock (Berlin: Akademie Verlag,1970)
2. Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute (n. 1). See further Elizabeth Hurren, "A Pauper Dead-House: The Expansion of the Cambridge Anatomical Teaching School Under the Late Victorian Poor Law, 1870-1914," Med. Hist., 2004, 48 : 69-94.
3. Michael Sappol, A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth- Century America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
4. Toby Gelfand, "The 'Paris Manner' of Dissection: Student Anatomical Dissection in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris," Bull. Hist. Med., 1972, 46 : 99-130.
5. Dora B. Weiner, The Citizen-Patient in Revolutionary and Imperial Paris (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), pp. 181-83.
6. Wagener, "Die G̈ttinger Anatomie" (n. 1); Stukenbrock, "Der zersẗckte C̈rper" (n. 1), esp. pp. 26-78; Karin Stukenbrock, "Unter dem Primat der ̈konomie? Soziale und wirtschaftliche Aspekte der Leichenbeschaffung f̈r die Anatomie," in Anatomie: Sektionen einer medizinischen Wissenschaft im 18. Jahrhundert, ed. J̈rgen Helm and Karin Stukenbrock (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2004), pp. 227-39.
7. On how and why Vienna succeeded Paris, see John Harley Warner, Against the Spirit of System: The French Impulse in Nineteenth-Century American Medicine (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 297-314, and Thomas N. Bonner, Becoming a Physician: Medical Education in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, 1750-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 191-92.
8. Erna Lesky, Die Wiener Medizinische Schule im 19. Jahrhundert (Graz: Hermann B̈hlaus Nachf., 1965).
9. "Lehr- und Lernfreiheit der Medizin," Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, 1853, 3 : 491-93.
10. Bonner attributed Vienna's success to several equally significant factors, from training in medical specialties to access to patients: Thomas N. Bonner, American Doctors and German Universities: A Chapter in International Intellectual Relations, 1870-1914 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963), pp. 30-31, 69-82, and Becoming a Physician (n. 7), pp. 248-49. By contrast, Warner singled out the availability of human bodies-patients and dissectible corpses-as the most important element: Against the Spirit of System (n. 7), pp. 297-314.
11. Reinhard Hildebrand, "Mikroskopische Anatomie mit den Augen des makroskopischen Anatomen: Der Wiener Anatom Joseph Hyrtl und seine mikroskopischen Injektionspr̈parate," Sudhoffs Archiv., 1992, 76 : 203-13; Gretchen Worden, M̈tter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (New York: Blast Books, 2002), pp. 178-80.
12. On the Pernkopf atlas, see esp. David Williams, "The History of Eduard Pernkopf's Topographische Anatomie des Menschen," J. Biocommun., 1988, 15(2) : 2-12; Michael Hubenstorf, "Medicinische Fakulẗt 1938-1945," in Willf̈hrige Wissenschaft: Die Universiẗt Wien 1938-1945, ed. Gernot Heiβ et al. (Vienna: Verlag f̈r Gesellschaftskritik, 1989), pp. 233-82; Eduard Malina, "Eduard Pernkopf's Atlas of Anatomy or: the Fiction of 'Pure Science,'" Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift, 1998, 110 : 193-201; William E. Seidelman, "From the Danube to the Spree: Deception, Truth and Morality in Medicine," in Jahrbuch 1999. Dokumentationsarchiv des ̈sterreichischen Widerstandes, ed. Siegwald Ganglmair (Vienna: D̈W, 1999), pp. 15-32.
13. See, for example, Sean Burrell and Geoffrey Gill, "The Liverpool Cholera Epidemic of 1832 and Anatomical Dissection: Medical Mistrust and Civil Unrest," J. Hist. Med. All. Sci., 2005, 60 : 478-98; Hurren, "A Pauper Dead-House" (n. 2); Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute (n. 1); Sappol, A Traffic of Dead Bodies (n. 3); Wagener, "Die G̈ttinger Anatomie" (n. 1).
14. For a comparative anthropological perspective on funerary traditions in the West, see Jack Goody and Cesare Poppi, "Flowers and Bones: Approaches to the Dead in Anglo- American and Italian Cemeteries," Comp. Stud. Hist. Soc., 1994, 36 : 146-75. For a historical- anthropological view on differences between Northern and Southern European attitudes to dissection, see Katharine Park, "The Life of the Corpse: Division and Dissection in Late Medieval Europe," J. Hist. Med. All. Sci., 1995, 50 : 111-32.
15. In the text, "anatomy" designates the discipline of normal human anatomy, and "pathological anatomy" designates the discipline of morbid or pathological anatomy.
16. On the need to pay more attention to the city as the sociopolitical setting of knowledge production and to strengthen ties between urban history and history of science, see Sven Dierig et al., "Introduction: Toward an Urban History of Science," Osiris, 2003, 18 : 1-19. Much of the literature on science and the city has hitherto focused on the relationship between scientific expertise and the entrepreneurial culture of industrial British urban centers. See Robert H. Kargon, Science in Victorian Manchester: Enterprise and Expertise (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); Metropolis and Province: Science in British Culture, 1780-1850, ed. Ian Inkster and Jack Morrell (London: Hutchinson, 1983); Ian Inkster, Scientific Culture and Urbanisation in Industrialising Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 1997). For science in the culture of a German city-state, see Ayako Sakurai, Science, Identity and Urban Reinvention in a Mercantile City-State: The Associational Culture of Nineteenth-Century Frankfurt am Main (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 2006). On science and medicine in the Viennese urban culture, see Maria Rentetzi, "The City as a Context for Scientific Activity: Creating the Mediziner-Viertel in Fin-de-Sìcle Vienna," Endeavour, 2004, 28 : 39-44; Rentetzi, "Gender, Politics, and Radioactivity Research in Interwar Vienna," Isis, 2004, 95 : 359-93; and Deborah R. Coen, "A Lens of Many Facets: Science Through a Family's Eyes," Isis, 2006, 97 : 395-419.
17. See, for instance, Anne Hardy, The Epidemic Streets: Infectious Disease and the Rise of Preventive Medicine, 1856-1900 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993). For a sociologist's view of the city as an expression of culturally contingent bodily perception, see Richard Sennett, Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization (London: Penguin, 2002, c. 1994).
18. Charles Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1962); Richard J. Evans, Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830-1910 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987); Keith Wailoo, Dying in the City of the Blues: Sickle Cell Anaemia and the Politics of Race and Health (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
19. See Cay-R̈diger Pr̈ll, Medizin am Toten oder am Lebenden? Pathologie in Berlin und in London, 1900-1945 (Basel: Schwabe, 2003) and Sven Dierig on physiology in Berlin: "Engines for Experiment: Laboratory Revolution and Industrial Labor in the Nineteenth-Century City," Osiris, 2003, 18 : 116-34.
20. The large literature has started with Carl Schorske's pioneering work in the 1960s and 1970s, later published as a collection of essays: Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Sìcle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1981, c. 1980), attributing the development of an idiosyncratic "ahistoric" Viennese culture to a reaction against nationalist politics of the 1880s and 1890s. See also William M. Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History, 1848-1938 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972); Allan Janik and Stephen E. Toulmin, Wittgenstein's Vienna (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973); William J. McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974); Jacques le Rider, Modernit́ Viennoise et Crises de L'Identit́ (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990); and Moritz Cśky, Ideologie der Operette und Wiener Moderne: Ein Kulturhistorischer Essay zur ̈sterreichischen Identiẗt (Vienna: B̈hlau, 1996). For an overview of critiques of Schorske's approach, see Rethinking Vienna 1900, ed. Steven Beller (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001).
21. Some of the documentation disappeared during the Allied bombing in 1945, which heavily damaged the anatomical institute.
22. Nancy Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 86; Andrea Carlino, Books of the Body: Anatomical Ritual and Renaissance Learning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 178-79.
23. Katharine Park, "The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy," Renaiss. Quart., 1994, 47 : 1-33.
24. Ibid.; Park, "The Life of the Corpse" (n. 14).
25. Ibid., p. 115.
26. Sonia Horn, "Vom Leichen̈ffnen. Beobachtungen zum Umgang mit anatomischen und pathologischen Sektionen in Wien vor 1800," Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift, 2004, 116 : 792-803.
27. Welt des Barock, ed. Rupert Feuchtm̈ller and Elisabeth Kov́cs (Vienna: Herder, 1986).
28. Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water, Die Kapuzinergruft: Begr̈bnissẗtte der Habsburger in Wien, 2nd ed. (Vienna: Herder, 1993), p. 33.
29. Anonymous, Acht Tage in Wien: Ein treuer F̈hrer zu den Merkẅrdigkeiten der Kaiserstadt und ein freundlicher Wegweiser in die reizendsten Umgebungen derselben (Vienna: Wilhelm Braum̈ller, 1849), pp. 118-26.
30. Horn, "Vom Leichen̈ffnen" (n. 26), p. 798.
31. After Cremona and Bologna around 1300, anatomical dissections were first performed in Padua (1341) and Montpellier (1376); Vienna was closely followed by Siena (1427) and Prague (1448). See Stukenbrock, "Der zersẗckte C̈rper" (n. 1), p. 13. In German-speaking regions, in T̈bingen, the first anatomical dissection probably took place sometime between 1497 and 1536: M̈rike, Geschichte der T̈binger Anatomie (n. 1), p. 15-17; in Marburg after 1536: Jaensch, "Universiẗt Marburg" (n. 1), p. 776; in Rostock around 1567: Schumacher and Wischhusen, Anatomia Rostochiensis (n. 1), p. 178; in Helmstedt sometime before 1576: Stukenbrock, "Der zersẗckte C̈rper" (n. 1), p. 26; in K̈nigsberg in the early seventeenth century: Bargmann, "Zur Geschichte der Anatomie in K̈nigsberg" (n. 1), p. 163; in Kiel by 1666: Stukenbrock, "Der zersẗckte C̈rper" (n. 1), p. 26; in Z̈rich after 1677: Koller, Das anatomische Institut der Universiẗt Z̈rich (n. 1), pp. 7-8. The pace differed from one city to the next, and periods of years and decades without a dissection were not rare.
32. Sonia Horn, "'⋯ ein wohl auffgerichtes theatrum anatomicum.' Anatomischer Unterricht f̈r nichtakademische Heilkundige an der Wiener Medizinischen Fakulẗt im 18. Jahrhundert," in Anatomie: Sektionen einer medizinischer Wissenschaft im 18. Jahrhundert, ed. J̈rgen Helm and Karin Stukenbrock (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2004), pp. 189-212, see esp. 198-201.
33. Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute (n. 1), pp. 32-34.
34. Horn, "'⋯ ein wohl auffgerichtes theatrum anatomicum'" (n. 32), p. 199.
35. See Josef Pauser, "Sektion als Strafe?" in K̈rper ohne Leben. Begegnung und Umgang mit Toten, ed. Norbert Stefenelli (Vienna: B̈hlau, 1998), pp. 527-35, esp. p. 529.
36. Sonia Horn, "Sektion und Obduktion in L̈ndern ohne erforderliche Zustimmung Hinterbliebener Unterschiede des Umgangen mit Toten. Versuch einer historischen Ann̈herung am Beispiel Wien," in Stefenelli, K̈rper ohne Leben (n. 35), pp. 596-603, esp. p. 598.
37. Park, "The Criminal and the Saintly Body" (n. 23), p. 23.
38. M̈rike, Geschichte der T̈binger Anatomie (n. 1), pp. 16, 39, and 47.
39. Stukenbrock, "Der zersẗckte C̈rper" (n. 1), pp. 154 -62; Wagener, "Die G̈ttinger Anatomie" (n. 1), pp. 76-77.
40. The history of anatomical burial in Vienna remains to be written. Recent archival and archaeological research indicates that the bodies were buried first at hospital cemeteries (Holy Ghost Hospital and Citizens' Hospital, followed by St. Marx Cemetery and General Hospital cemeteries) from which they were moved to community cemeteries inẄhringerstrasse, in the nineteenth century, and the Central Cemetery, from 1874 (personal communication, Sonia Horn). On anatomical burial at the Ẅhringer cemetery, see also Universiẗtsarchiv (hereafter UA), Dekanatsakten der Medizinischen Fakulẗt. Zahl (hereafter Z.) 582 (1871/2).
41. Horn, "'⋯ ein wohl auffgerichtes theatrum anatomicum'" (n. 32), p. 201.
42. So for instance, the supply of anatomy with hospital cadavers (in addition to executed criminals) was first allowed in K̈nigsberg in 1737, with the decree renewed in 1777: Bargmann, "Zur Geschichte der Anatomie in K̈nigsberg" (n. 1), p. 177; in G̈ttingen in 1737 and 1738: Wagener, "Die G̈ttinger Anatomie" (n. 1), p. 64; and in Ẅrzburg in 1749: Mirjam Elze, "Die Geschichte des anatomischen Institutes in Ẅrzburg von 1582 bis 1849" (M.D. diss., Julius Maximilian University of Ẅrzburg, 1990), p. 143.
43. "Todter K̈rperabgebung zur Anatomie, 1749," in Codex Austriacus, vol. 4: 1740-1758, ed. Thomas P̈ck (Vienna: Trattner, 1777), p. 468.
44. Ibid., p. 475.
45. T. C. W. Blanning, Joseph II and Enlightened Despotism (London: Longman, 1970), p. 68. On the military medical academy Josephinum as an embodiment of Joseph's ideas of medical education, see Erna Lesky, "̈sterreichisches Gesundheitswesen im Zeitalter des aufgekl̈rten Absolutismus," Archiv f̈r ̈sterreichische Geschichte, 1959, 122 : 1-228; and, with an emphasis on the uses of Josephinum's collection of anatomical models, Anna M̈rker, "Model Experts: The Production and Uses of Anatomical Models at La Specola, Florence, and the Josephinum, Vienna, 1775-1814" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 2005), chap. 5.
46. Helmut Wyklicky, 200 Jahre Allgemeines Krankenhaus, 2nd ed. (Vienna: Facultas, 1993).
47. On the advantages of a geographically centralized medical education from the perspective of American and French students in Vienna, see Bonner, American Doctors (n. 10), p. 31, and Lesky, Die Wiener Medizinische Schule (n. 8), p. 295.
48. Franz Knispel, Bestattungsmuseum Wien: F̈hrer durch die Sammlung (Vienna: W iener Stadtwerke-Bestattung W ien, 1997), p. 97; Hilde Schm̈lzer, A scḧne Leich: der Wiener und sein Tod (Vienna: Kremayr & Scheriau, 1980), pp. 58-61.
49. Johannes W immer, Gesundheit, Krankheit und Tod im Zeitalter der Aufkl̈rung: Fallstudien aus den habsburgischen Erbl̈ndern (Vienna: B̈hlau, 1991), pp. 176-202.
50. Michael Hagner, Geniale Gehirne: Zur Geschichte der Elitegehirnforschung (G̈ttingen: Wallstein, 2004), p. 62.
51. Knispel, Bestattungsmuseum Wien (n. 48), pp. 8-9.
52. The sextons quickly regrouped and founded a second funeral company, Pieẗt, soon followed by a number of competitors, headed by Concordia (1870). The latter took over the transport of corpses to and from the anatomical institute that had until then had its own hearse: ̈sterreichisches Staatsarchiv (hereafter ̈StA), Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv (hereafter AVA), Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), Universiẗt Wien, Sig 4 Med, Anatomisches Institut, Fasz. (Faszikel) 808, Z. 15064 (1882). In 1907, the Viennese municipal council purchased the Enterprise des pompes fuǹbres and Concordia to merge them into a new Gemeinde Wien-Sẗdtische Bestattungsanstalt. See Knispel, Bestattungsmuseum Wien (n. 48), p. 9.
53. ̈StA, AVA, Ministerium des Innern, Allgemeine Reihe, 36/8 Leichentransport gen. 1870-1899, Karton 1153, Z. 1325 (1872).
54. In 1856, there were as many as 112 societies for support of the sick, with 15,400 members; 19 burial societies, with 186,500 members; and 34 that combined these two services, with 23,900 members. See Leopold Wittelsḧfer, Wiens Heil- und Humaniẗts-Anstalten, ihre Geschichte, Organisation und Statistik (Vienna: L. W. Seidel, 1856), pp. 392-94. In the late nineteenth century, many societies of this kind were concentrated in and around the proletarian districts in southwest Vienna: ̈StA, AVA, Ministerium des Innern: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), I/7 Gesamt-Inventar, V. Teil Inventar, and Vereinsakten 1870-99.
55. Dreiβigster Jahres-Bericht des Vereines vom Heiligen Josef von Arimathaea in Wien, f̈r das Jahr vom 1. J̈nner bis Ende December 1886, (Vienna: St. Josef von Arimathaea Verein, 1887).
56. Until 1892, the currency in the Habsburg Empire was the florin, which was equal in value to guldens (or guilders). One florin contained 60 Kreutzer. The currency reform of 1892 substituted 1 florin for 2 Kronen, where 1 Krone contained 100 Heller.
57. UA, Dekanatsakten der Medizinischen Fakulẗt, Z. 290 (1866/7); ̈StA, AVA, Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), Universiẗt Wien, Sig 4 Med, Anatomisches Institut, Fasz. 809, Z. 18565 (1908).
58. ̈StA, AVA, Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), Universiẗt Wien, Sig 4 Med, Anatomisches Institut, Fasz. 809, Z. 13034 (1899).
59. See, for instance, the case of early nineteenth-century Halle, where citizens were warned against such collective schemes of saving for burial expenses as a form of begging that should not be supported: Piechocki, "Zur Leichenversorgung" (n. 1), p. 76.
60. Schm̈lzer, A scḧne Leich (n. 48), pp. 58-59; Peter Pleyel, Friedḧfe in Wien: vom Mittelalter bis heute (Wien: Pichler Edition, 1999).
61. Knispel, Bestattungsmuseum Wien (n. 48), pp. 105-6, 110-11.
62. A. Witlacil, "Ueber Leichenverbrenung II," Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, 1874, 24 : 479-80.
63. A. Witlacil, "Ueber Leichenverbrenung I," Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, 1874, 24 : 455-56.
64. Pat Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 203-9; Knispel, Bestattungsmuseum Wien (n. 48), pp. 13-14.
65. Paulus Ebner, "Der Streit um die Feuerbestattung zwischen katolische Kirche und Sozialdemokratie. Eine Studie zum Kulturkampf in der ersten Republik" (Diploma diss., University of Vienna, 1989).
66. Elze, "Die Geschichte des anatomischen Institutes in Ẅrzburg" (n. 42), pp. 144 -49.
67. Wagener, "Die G̈ttinger Anatomie" (n. 1); Nick Hopwood, "Artist versus Anatomist, Models Against Dissection: Paul Zeiller of Munich and the Revolution of 1848," Med. Hist., 2007, 51 : 279-308.
68. Carl August Wunderlich (1815-77) was in 1841 the first to use the term "young Vienna school." See C. A. Wunderlich, "Aus C. A. Wunderlichs Schrift 'Wien und Paris,'" in Die Wiener Medizinische Schule in Vorm̈rz, ed. Max Neuburger (Vienna: Rikola, 1921), pp. 223-45. The term remained in use until the medical historian Theodor Puschmann replaced it with "the newer Vienna Medical School" in 1884. Finally, Erna Lesky introduced the term "the Second Vienna Medical School" in 1965 to distinguish the school from van Swieten's "First Vienna Medical School" of the second half of the eighteenth century. See Roland Sedivy, "Rokitansky und die Wiener Medizinische Schule: Von der Naturphilosophie zur Naturwissenschaft," Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, 2004, 154 : 443-53.
69. See Warner, Against the Spirit of System (n. 7); Bonner, American Doctors and German Universities (n. 10); Wilhelm His, Lebenserinnerungen von Wilhelm His senior, als Manuskript gedr̈ckt (Leipzig, 1903), pp. 40-47; Ernst Haeckel, "Die Wiener Medizinische Fakulẗt um 1857. Ein Brief Ernst Haeckels an seine Eltern," M̈nchener medizinische Wochenschrift, 1928, 75 : 2019-20.
70. On the development of the competition and the proposed solutions at late eighteenth- century German universities, see Stukenbrock, "Der zersẗckte C̈rper" (n. 1), pp. 137-49. On the competition in eighteenth-century G̈ttingen, see Wagener, "Die G̈ttinger Anatomie" (n. 1), p. 76; and in nineteenth-century Ẅrzburg, Georg Feser, "Das anatomische Institut in Ẅrzburg, 1847-1903" (M.D. diss., Julius Maximilian University of Ẅrzburg, 1977), pp. 20-21.
71. Oscar Wildes Vater ̈ber Metternichs ̈sterreich: William Wildeein irischer Augenarzt ̈ber Biedermeier und Vorm̈rz in Wien, ed. Irene Montjoye (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1989), p. 67.
72. UA, Dekanatsakten der Medizinischen Fakulẗt. Z. 324 (1852/3).
73. There were four hundred students and visitors taking the dissection course in the winter semester of 1862-63, while 310 attended anatomical lectures, of whom 170 were first-year students and the remaining 140 either students of higher years or graduate physicians. See UA, Dekanatsakten der Medizinischen Fakulẗt. Z. 169 (1862/3). The number of matriculated students grew from 718 in 1860 to 1,653 in 1871. See Gary B. Cohen, "Die Studenten der Wiener Universiẗt von 1860 bis 1900: ein soziales und geographisches Profil," in Wegenetz Europ̈isches Geistes II. Universiẗten und Studenten: die Bedeutung studentischer Migration in Mittel- und S̈dosteuropa vom 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Richard G. Plaschka and Karlheinz Mack (Vienna: Verlag f̈r Geschichte und Politik), pp. 290-316, p. 292.
74. Josef Hyrtl, Handbuch der praktischen Zergliederungskunst als Anleitung zu den Sections̈bungen und zur Ausarbeitung anatomischer Pr̈parate (Vienna: Braum̈ller, 1860); R̈diger Schultka and Luminita G̈bbel, "Pr̈parationstechniken und Pr̈parate im 18. und fr̈hen 19. Jahrhundert, dargestellt an Beispielen aus den anatomischen Sammlungen zu Halle (Saale)," in Anatomie: Sektionen einer medizinischen Wissenschaft im 18. Jahrhundert, ed. J̈rgen Helm and Karin Stukenbrock (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 2004), pp. 49-81. On the history of formaldehyde, see Frederic J. Walker, Formaldehyde (New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1944), pp. 1-9.
75. ̈StA, AVA, Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), Universiẗt Wien, Sig 4 Med, Anatomisches Institut, Fasz. 808, Z. 8242/641 (1852).
76. UA, Dekanatsakten der Medizinischen Fakulẗt (n. 72).
77. This was granted only in 1928: Kurt M̈hlberger, "Regelungen und Massnahmen bez̈glich der Beschaffung von Leichen f̈r das anatomische Institut," in Untersuchungen zur Anatomischen Wissenschaft in Wien 1938-1945, ed. Akad. Senat der Universiẗt Wien (unpublished manuscript, University of Vienna, 1998).
78. Wittelsḧfer, Wiens Heil- und Humaniẗts-Anstalten (n. 54), p. 90.
79. See Lesky, Die Wiener Medizinische Schule (n. 8), pp. 129-41.
80. Strasburg did get a chair in pathological anatomy before Vienna, in 1819, but the professor Johann Lobstein, taught two more subjects, obstetrics and internal medicine. See Hans-Heinz Eulner, Die Entwicklung der medizinischen Spezialf̈cher an den Universiẗten des deutschen Sprachgebietes (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1970), pp. 102-3.
81. Lesky, Die Wiener Medizinische Schule (n. 8), p. 99.
82. On the differences in disciplinary development of pathology in Europe, especially between London and Berlin, see Pr̈ll, Medizin am Toten oder am Lebenden? (n. 19) and Pathology in the 19th and 20th Centuries: The Relationship Between Theory and Practice, Cay-R̈diger Pr̈ll, ed., (Sheffield: EAHMH, 1998). In contrast with Germany, at Habsburg universities pathological anatomy remained independent, with newer approaches institutionalized at separate chairs. See Eulner, Die Entwicklung der medizinischen Spezialf̈cher (n. 80), pp. 506, 641-49.
83. Robert J. Miciotto, "Carl Rokitansky: A Reassessment of the Hematohumoral Theory of Disease," Bull. Hist. Med., 1978, 52 : 183-99.
84. Jens Lachmund, Der abgehorchte K̈rper. Zur historischen Soziologie der medizinischen Untersuchung (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1997); for a condensed English version of the argument, see "Making Sense of Sound: Auscultation and Lung Sound Codification in Nineteenth- Century French and German Medicine," Sci.Tech. & Hum. Val., 1999, 24 : 419-50.
85. For biographical information on Rokitansky, see Lesky, Die Wiener Medizinische Schule (n. 8), pp. 129-41.
86. The General Hospital had two thousand autopsies a year, all performed by Rokitansky and his team. In addition to those, he conducted twenty five thousand forensic autopsies in his career. See Lesky, Die Wiener Medizinische Schule (n. 8), pp. 137.
87. UA, Dekanatsakten der Medizinischen Fakulẗt (n. 57).
88. My discussion of Rokitansky's privilege is based on his letter (n. 87) and the memoirs of Moritz Benedikt, Aus meinem Leben: Erinnerungen und Er̈rterungen (Vienna: Carl Konegen, 1906). Although at first glance it may seem that a strong claim is based on modest evidence, it must be stressed that (1) this was a secret privilege and therefore unlikely to have been discussed frequently or publicly, and (2) Rokitansky's letter has the weight of an official document, because it was written at the request of the Austrian authorities for the Saxon government.
89. Benedikt, Aus meinem Leben (n. 88), pp. 66-67.
90. UA, Dekanatsakten der Medizinischen Fakulẗt. Z. 36, 90, 150, 361, 458, 506 (1858/9).
91. Ibid.
92. Virchow, who visited Vienna in 1846, wrote that Vienna did not lack corpses for pathological-anatomical exercises but that home students had fewer chances to perform an autopsy than foreign visitors. See Rudolph Virchow, "Ein alter Bericht ̈ber die Gestaltung der pathologischen Anatomie in Deutschland, wie sie ist und wie sie werden muss," Virchows Archiv, 1900, 159 : 24 -39, p. 34.
93. UA, Personalakten der Medizinischen Fakulẗt, Anton Friedlowsky, Z. 526 (1864/5).
94. Lesky, Die Wiener Medizinische Schule (n. 8), p. 297.
95. UA, Dekanatsakten der Medizinischen Fakulẗt, Z. 81 (1871/2).
96. Rudolfsheim und F̈nfhaus: Ein Heimatbuch, ed. Edgar Weyrich (Vienna: Heimatausschuss der Lehrerschaft im VI. Wiener Inspektionsbezirke, 1922).
97. Understanding differences in attitudes toward dissection between rural and urban communities would require more research. It is, however, clear that Viennese anatomists used rural cadavers rarely this is the only case in this period not because of protests, but because transporting small numbers of corpses was uneconomical.
98. UA, Dekanatsakten der Medizinischen Fakulẗt. Z. 81, 175, 186, 198, 228, 296, 304, 582 (1871/2).
99. ̈StA, AVA, Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), Universiẗt Wien, Sig 4 Med, Anatomisches Institut, Fasz. 808, Z. 15408 (1873), 18266-18988 (1878).
100. For the content of such a surgical course, advertised in Vorlesungen-Verzeichnis der Universiẗt Wien f̈r 1881/2 (Vienna: Universiẗt Wien, 1881), see Moritz Holl, Die Operationen an der Leiche: die Leitfaden f̈r Operations̈bungen mit besonderer Ber̈cksichtigung der Anatomie (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1883).
101. Lesky, Die Wiener Medizinische Schule (n. 8), pp. 605-8.
102. ̈StA, AVA, Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), Universiẗt Wien, Sig 4 Med, Anatomisches Institut, Fasz. 808, Z. 10291 (1885).
103. For instance, the railway was used in T̈bingen between 1861 and 1927, when it was replaced with a car, to access bodies from other towns in Ẅrttemberg: M̈rike, Geschichte der T̈binger Anatomie (n. 1), pp. 62-63 and p. 98.
104. ̈StA, AVA, Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), Universiẗt Wien, Sig 4 Med, Anatomisches Institut, Fasz. 808, Z. 17731 (1885).
105. Ibid.
106. Ibid., Z. 9304 (1884), Z. 15288 (1886), Z. 1790 (1887).
107. Ibid., Z. 17731 (1885), Z. 4541 (1886), Z. 8096 (1886).
108. Ibid., Z. 1271 (1886), Z. 4541 (1886), Z. 4821 (1887), Z. 22272 (1889).
109. Ibid., Z. 22272 (1889).
110. Ibid.
111. Ibid., Z. 4821 (1887).
112. Ibid., Z. 14856 (1890).
113. Smaller universities that were not as well supplied as Vienna started experimenting with preservation earlier, although it came into common use only with formaldehyde, around 1900. See, for instance, Schumacher and Wischhusen, Anatomia Rostochiensis (n. 1), p. 178.
114. ̈StA, AVA, Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), Universiẗt Wien, Sig 4 Med, Anatomisches Institut, Fasz. 809, Z. 55656 (1912).
115. Ibid., Z. 8433 (1914).
116. Ibid., Z. 3308 (1898), Z. 17790 (1902).
117. Ibid.
118. This is, to my knowledge, the first recorded protest against anatomy in the study period, 1848-1914: ̈StA, AVA, Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), Universiẗt Wien, Sig. 4 Med, Anatomisches Institut, Fasz. 809, Z. 18565 (1908).
119. Ibid.
120. Ibid.
121. The party had won the Vienna municipal elections in 1895, but the Emperor Franz Josef refused to accept their victory until he was forced by the government crisis to recruit their support. See John W. Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement 1848-1897 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981) and Boyer, Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna: Christian Socialism in Power, 1897-1918 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
122. These changes include the end of neoabsolutism and the constitutions of 1860 and 1867, the administrative reorganization of the country in 1867, and the economic boom of the 1860s that ended with the stock market crash of 1873. See, for example, Helmut Rumpler, Eine Chance f̈r Mitteleuropa: b̈rgerliche Emanzipation und Staatsverfall in der Habsburgermonarchie (Wien: Ueberreuter, 1997) and Alan J. P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918: A History of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary (Harmondworth: Penguin, 1981, c. 1941).
123. Steven Beller, Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 44.
124. Cohen, "Die Studenten der Wiener Universiẗt" (n. 73), p. 297.
125. Thomas Schlich, "Der lebende und der tote K̈rper," in "Der schejne Jid": Das Bild des "j̈dischen K̈rpers" in Mythos und Ritual, ed. Sander L. Gilman, Robert J̈tte, and Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz (Vienna: Picus, 1998), pp. 145-57.
126. Fred Rosner, Modern Medicine and Jewish Ethics, 2nd ed. (Hoboken, N.J.: Ktav Publishing House, 1991), p. 315; Mordechai Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition: The Social History of Orthodox Jewry in Imperial Germany (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 257; Schlich, "Der lebende und der tote K̈rper" (n. 125).
127. Tankred Koch, Lebendig begraben: Geschichte und Geschichten vom Scheintod (Leipzig: Edition Leipzig, 1990).
128. Knispel, Bestattungsmuseum Wien (n. 48), pp. 18-19, 36-37; Gert Baumgart and Hagen Schaub, Der ewige Leib: Mumien in ̈sterreichischen Sammlungen und Gr̈ften (Vienna: Verlagshaus der ̈rzte, 2003), p. 55-56.
129. Schlich, "Der lebende und der tote K̈rper" (n. 125).
130. The new hospital, financed by the Rothschilds, was opened in 1873 to replace the old institution established in 1698. See 125 Jahre Rothschild Spital, ed. Ruth Koblizek and Michael Heindl (Donnerskirchen: Dagobert, 1998).
131. On Jews in Viennese medicine, see Cohen, "Die Studenten der Wiener Universiẗt" (n. 73); Beller, Vienna and the Jews (n. 123), p. 37-38; Klaus Ḧdl, Die Pathologisierung des j̈dischen K̈rpers. Antisemitismus, Geschlecht und Medizin im Fin de Sìcle (Vienna: Picus, 1997).
132. Richard S. Geehr, Karl Lueger: Mayor of Fin de Sìcle Vienna (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990), pp. 185-88.
133. The same arguments about materialism and the dehumanization of medicine caused by an increasing share of Jewish physicians were made in Germany. See Ulrich Tr̈hler and Andreas-Holger Maehle, "Anti-Vivisection in Nineteenth-Century Germany and Switzerland: Motives and Methods," in Vivisection in Historical Perspective, ed. Nicolaas A. Rupke (London: Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 149-87, esp. pp. 177-78; and Paul J. Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 170.
134. So Wiener Medinizische Wochenschrift, 1884, 34 : 1269 reported on the antivivisectionist Ernst Heinrich von Weber, who, in the journal that he edited, Der Thier- und Menschenfreund, falsely reported on a case of human vivisection performed by a Jewish physician in Osnabr̈ck.
135. See Peter Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (New York: Wiley, 1964).
136. "Der Kampf gegen die Aerzte," Wiener Medinizische Wochenschrift, 1903, 53 : 2133-34.
137. I quote the English translation of the speech, held at the Lower Austrian Diet on 4 November 1903, from Geehr, Karl Lueger (n. 132), p. 187.
138. Die Fackel, 1903, 5 : 5-7.
139. The report, written in 1907, is placed in ̈StA, AVA, Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (1848-1914), Universiẗt Wien, Sig. 4 Med, Anatomisches Institut, Fasz. 809, Z. 8433 (1914).
140. On the assimilation of Jews in Vienna, see Marsha L. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna, 1867-1914 : Assimilation and Identity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983). I could find no indication that any of the many Jewish medical students and doctors opposed dissection. Arthur Schnitzler, a Jewish medical student in the 1880s and later a famous playwright, expressed his distaste for other students' disrespectful treatment of cadavers, but that probably had more to do with his personal sensibility than with religious feelings: Jugend in Wien: eine Autobiographie/Arthur Schnitzler, ed. Therese Nickl and Hermann Schnitzler (Vienna: Fritz Molden, 1968), p. 127. To my knowledge, no Jewish medical students or doctors in this period bequeathed their bodies for posthumous dissection or other research use, but then neither did Christian professors.
141. Jacques Kornberg, Theodor Herzl: From Assimilation to Zionism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993).
142. The meeting took place in the offices of the Lower Austrian provincial government on 16 October 1907 and brought together representatives of anatomy, pathological anatomy, Viennese hospitals, and Lower Austrian authorities. See ̈StA, AVA, Unterricht: Allgemeine Reihe (n. 139).
143. Karl Sablik, Julius Tandler, Mediziner und Sozialreformer: eine Biographie (Vienna: A. Schendl, 1983), p. 45.