The Renaissance was an era of rebirth. People were learning new things and it is considered the most important period of time since the fall of Ancient Rome. People in the medical profession were still learning about the human body. This is where the practice of dissection and body snatching played a role in shaping future society. The practice of body snatching and dissection during the Renaissance era greatly impacted the study of human anatomy.
During the Renaissance, people would dissect bodies as a way to expand their knowledge of the human body. The first person to do a public dissection was Herophilus (325-255 B.C.) in Alexandria. Herophilus was acknowledged as the father of anatomy for his discoveries of the difference between motor nerves and sensory nerves (“Gale
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Body snatching was popular, but prohibited during this time period. Body snatching was the removal of corpses in graveyards, then marketing them to buyers. This practice was condoned by many medical practitioners. Claude Bernard (1813) associated anatomy with physiology and came up with the conclusion that without a proper understanding of both, there would never be a scientific approach to the study and practice of medicine. Therefore, people started dissecting bodies even more.(“Encyclopedia-Body snatching”). If doctors and scientists thought about it this way, thousands more cases of body snatching would occur. Although the Relatives of the deceased would send spies, usually women, to scout the grave and plan for the removal of the body cases would still pop up. To prevent the actual body snatching from happening, often relatives of the deceased watched over their graves, leading to many different inventions such as iron coffins, grave alarms and an iron bar structure built around the coffins, also known as a mortsafe. Since body snatching was prohibited, the punishment for this would be imprisoned or