Less Than Human: A Study of the Institutional Origins of the Medical Waste Recovered at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery

Abstract

Poor Laws enacted in the early 19th-century condemned the most destitute to confinement in almshouses, poor farms, and workhouses. These laws paralleled contemporary Anatomy Acts that turned the unclaimed bodies of individuals who died at those institutions over to medical facilities for dissection, often simultaneously removing anatomization as a punishment for murder. In essence, pauperism became punishable by anatomization. Thus, dissection served the dual purpose of reinforcing social identity amongst the lower class and privileging the social identity of upper-class medical students. This study is an analysis of the material medical waste recovered from the graves of individuals interred at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery. My goal is to determine from which medical institution in Milwaukee County the medical waste, and thus the body, originated, in concert with ongoing, collaborative bioarcheological analysis. This study utilizes a presence and absence analysis of types of medical waste found at burial locations alongside bioarcheological evidence for types of post-mortem medical intervention in order to determine the institutional origin of the waste recovered.