Editing Anatomy (section)

=== Late modern ===
{{further|History of anatomy in the 19th century}}
[[File:Lektion_i_anatomi_vid_Gymnastiska_Centralinstitutet_Stockholm_kvinnliga_kursen_1891-1893_gih0124.jpg|left|thumb|Anatomy teaching with female students, 1891–1893]]
Medical schools began to be set up in the United States towards the end of the 18th century. Classes in anatomy needed a continual stream of cadavers for dissection, and these were difficult to obtain. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York were all renowned for [[body snatching]] activity as criminals raided graveyards at night, removing newly buried corpses from their coffins.<ref name=trafficdead>{{cite book |author=Sappol, Michael |title=A traffic of dead bodies: anatomy and embodied social identity in nineteenth-century America |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, NJ |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-691-05925-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-9cKRzEx6ywC&q=A+Traffic+of+Dead+Bodies |access-date=15 October 2020 |archive-date=16 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416090946/https://books.google.com/books?id=-9cKRzEx6ywC&q=A+Traffic+of+Dead+Bodies |url-status=live }}</ref> A similar problem existed in Britain where demand for bodies became so great that grave-raiding and even [[anatomy murder]] were practised to obtain cadavers.<ref name="Rosner, Lisa. 2010">Rosner, Lisa. 2010. The Anatomy Murders. Being the True and Spectacular History of Edinburgh's Notorious Burke and Hare and of the Man of Science Who Abetted Them in the Commission of Their Most Heinous Crimes. University of Pennsylvania Press</ref> Some graveyards were, in consequence, protected with watchtowers. The practice was halted in Britain by the [[Anatomy Act]] of 1832,<ref>{{cite book | title=Death, Dissection, and the Destitute | publisher=Penguin | author=Richardson, Ruth | year=1989 | isbn=978-0-14-022862-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.leeds.ac.uk/chb/lectures/anatomy1.html | title=Introductory Anatomy | publisher=University of Leeds | access-date=25 June 2013 | author=Johnson, D.R. | archive-date=4 November 2008 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081104162600/https://www.leeds.ac.uk/chb/lectures/anatomy1.html | url-status=live }}</ref> while in the United States, similar legislation was enacted after the physician [[William S. Forbes]] of [[Jefferson Medical College]] was found guilty in 1882 of "complicity with resurrectionists in the despoliation of graves in Lebanon Cemetery".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jefferson.edu/about/eakins/forbes.html |title=Reproduction of Portrait of Professor William S. Forbes |publisher=Jefferson: Eakins Gallery |access-date=14 October 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016064638/https://www.jefferson.edu/about/eakins/forbes.html |archive-date=16 October 2013}}</ref>

The teaching of anatomy in Britain was transformed by Sir [[John Struthers (anatomist)|John Struthers]], [[Regius Professor of Anatomy (Aberdeen)|Regius Professor of Anatomy]] at the [[University of Aberdeen]] from 1863 to 1889. He was responsible for setting up the system of three years of "pre-clinical" academic teaching in the sciences underlying medicine, including especially anatomy. This system lasted until the reform of medical training in 1993 and 2003. As well as teaching, he collected many vertebrate skeletons for his museum of [[comparative anatomy]], published over 70 research papers, and became famous for his public dissection of the [[Tay Whale]].<ref name=pmid17373426>{{cite journal |vauthors=Waterston SW, Laing MR, Hutchison JD | title = Nineteenth century medical education for tomorrow's doctors | journal = Scottish Medical Journal | volume = 52 | issue = 1 | pages = 45–49 | year = 2007 | pmid = 17373426 | doi=10.1258/rsmsmj.52.1.45| s2cid = 30286930 }}</ref><ref name="pmid15712576">{{cite journal |vauthors=Waterston SW, Hutchison JD | title = Sir John Struthers MD FRCS Edin LLD Glasg: Anatomist, zoologist and pioneer in medical education | journal = The Surgeon | volume = 2 | issue = 6 | pages = 347–351 | year = 2004 | pmid = 15712576 | doi=10.1016/s1479-666x(04)80035-0}}</ref> From 1822 the Royal College of Surgeons regulated the teaching of anatomy in medical schools.<ref name="McLachlan, J. 2006. p.243-53">{{cite journal | author = McLachlan J., Patten D. | year = 2006 | title = Anatomy teaching: ghosts of the past, present and future | journal = Medical Education | volume = 40 | issue = 3| pages = 243–253 | doi = 10.1111/j.1365-2929.2006.02401.x | pmid = 16483327 | s2cid = 30909540 }}</ref> Medical museums provided examples in comparative anatomy, and were often used in teaching.<ref>{{cite journal | author = Reinarz J | year = 2005 | title = The age of museum medicine: The rise and fall of the medical museum at Birmingham's School of Medicine | journal = Social History of Medicine | volume = 18 | issue = 3| pages = 419–437 | doi = 10.1093/shm/hki050 }}</ref> [[Ignaz Semmelweis]] investigated [[puerperal fever]] and he discovered how it was caused. He noticed that the frequently fatal fever occurred more often in mothers examined by medical students than by midwives. The students went from the dissecting room to the hospital ward and examined women in childbirth. Semmelweis showed that when the trainees washed their hands in chlorinated lime before each clinical examination, the incidence of puerperal fever among the mothers could be reduced dramatically.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/534198/Ignaz-Philipp-Semmelweis |title=Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica  |access-date=15 October 2013}}</ref>
[[File:Siemens-electron-microscope.jpg|upright|thumb|An electron microscope from 1973]]
Before the modern medical era, the primary means for studying the internal structures of the body were [[dissection]] of the dead and [[inspection]], [[palpation]], and [[auscultation]] of the living. The advent of [[microscopy]] opened up an understanding of the building blocks that constituted living tissues. Technical advances in the development of [[achromatic lens]]es increased the [[Angular resolution|resolving power]] of the microscope, and around 1839, [[Matthias Jakob Schleiden]] and [[Theodor Schwann]] identified that cells were the fundamental unit of organization of all living things. The study of small structures involved passing light through them, and the [[microtome]] was invented to provide sufficiently thin slices of tissue to examine. Staining techniques using artificial dyes were established to help distinguish between different tissue types. Advances in the fields of [[histology]] and [[cytology]] began in the late 19th century<ref name=BritMicro>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/22980/anatomy/283/Microscopic-anatomy |title=Microscopic anatomy |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=14 October 2013 |archive-date=28 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141028075812/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/22980/anatomy/283/Microscopic-anatomy |url-status=live }}</ref> along with advances in surgical techniques allowing for the painless and safe removal of [[biopsy]] specimens. The invention of the [[electron microscope]] brought a significant advance in resolution power and allowed research into the [[ultrastructure]] of cells and the [[organelle]]s and other structures within them. About the same time, in the 1950s, the use of [[X-ray diffraction]] for studying the crystal structures of proteins, nucleic acids, and other biological molecules gave rise to a new field of [[molecular anatomy]].<ref name=BritMicro/>

Equally important advances have occurred in  ''non-invasive'' techniques for examining the body's interior structures. [[X-ray]]s can be passed through the body and used in medical [[radiography]] and [[fluoroscopy]] to differentiate interior structures that have varying degrees of opaqueness. [[Magnetic resonance imaging]], [[computed tomography]], and [[ultrasound imaging]] have all enabled the examination of internal structures in unprecedented detail to a degree far beyond the imagination of earlier generations.<ref name=":1">{{cite web | url=https://www.mhhe.com/biosci/ap/foxhumphys/student/olc/h-reading1.html | title=Anatomical Imaging | publisher=McGraw Hill Higher Education | year=1998 | access-date=25 June 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303232044/https://www.mhhe.com/biosci/ap/foxhumphys/student/olc/h-reading1.html | archive-date=3 March 2016 | url-status=dead }}</ref>