Posts Tagged ‘Patrick Ballard’

Potter”'s Field Tales no less rich and fascinating! Generosity doesn”'t tell it all!

By Sue Hunter Weir There are 350 people buried in the cemetery”'s Potters Field whose remains were used as research subjects in anatomy courses at the University of Minnesota during the years 1914-1916.  They were, to the say the least, a colorful lot:  homeless men, prison inmates, men who were both the instigators and victims of crime.  If they had one characteristic that they share was their social isolation; when they died, their bodies went unclaimed by friends or family. Other traits that many, though not all of them, shared, were alcoholism, mental illness and the effects of poverty. In the early part of the last century, state law required the county coroner to turn over the remains of anyone whose body went unclaimed to medical schools.  Because so many people believed that their bodies and souls were to be reunited on Judgment Day, the idea of dissection was, for the majority of people, unthinkable. As a result, there was a shortage of cadavers which [...]