Historians have long used maternity records to understand the evolution of maternity services. More recently, epidemiologists have become interested in obstetric hospital records as a source of data (e.g. birth weight, social class), to study the influence of early life on future health and disease: life course epidemiology. Edinburgh and Aberdeen are unusual in holding detailed records from several maternity institutions.
During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries anatomy theatres
in Scotland suffered from a shortage of cadaveric material. Medical students and their teachers were eager to improve their medical education and began to look for ways to further their anatomy knowledge and so turned to bodysnatching. Bodysnatching failed to meet the demand so some resorted to murder to acquire cadavers, sometimes in exchange for money. Bodysnatching became common throughout the British Isles and prompted the 1832 Anatomy Act, which allowed unclaimed bodies to be used for dissection.
This article discusses responses to disease in Aberdeen during a formative period in the provision of healthcare within the city. The foundation of King’s College was followed, in 1497, by the establishment of the first royally endowed university Chair of Medicine in the British Isles, and its first incumbent, James Cumming, was employed by the local government as the first city doctor in 1503.
