morbid anatomy for anatomical studies as punishment that is only justified to inflict on the morally condemned. Anatomy riots Medical grave robbing incited widespread anger and abhorrence, resulting in at least seventeen full-fledged anatomy riots in the United States between 1785 and 1855, in Connecticut, Vermont, Ohio, and elsewhere. Although a law which outlawed body snatching, and allowed executed criminals to be dissected after death, was passed by the New York legislature after the 1788 riot, medical students continued to face a shortage of cadavers, and so grave robbing persisted These anatomy riots involved citizens attacking medical buildings and the students and staff within them, reclaiming bodies and retaliating against militiamen sent to contain the riots. These attacks were rampant at most medical schools, including the University of Maryland, Franklin Medical College in Illinois, and even Yale University. Some were forced to shut down, sometimes permanently, and others had to relocate. Union troops burned Winchester Medical College in 1862 specifically for using for dissection the bodies of John Brown's son Watson Brown and three African Americans following John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry; it never reopened. In the nineteenth century, the availability of bodies for anatomical studies often determined a medical institution's success. Subsequent to these riots, institutions that could afford it turned to importing cadavers at much higher prices, and those who could not faced shutdown. Anatomy acts In response to the increasing hospital competition for and public opposition against bodies for pathological anatomy, in 1820s the anatomists in America began demanding legal protection for the acquisition of cadavers. States began passing anatomy acts, or "bone bills," the first of such in Massachusetts in 1831. This legislation allowed medical schools access to "unclaimed" bodies, often those of people who died in workhouses, hospitals or other similar institutions and had no money for proper burial. While supplying anatomists with a steady supply of bodies, the anatomy acts sought to appease the upper and middle classes, assuring them that their bodies would not be plundered after death. Anatomists also appealed to taxpayers by arguing that expenditures could be saved on burying the indigents in society and the poor could be motivated to work harder and not seek social relief. These acts were a form of retributive justice, contending that the poor, like the criminal, owed a debt to society, which could be repaid through offering their bodies for the advancement of