person had expressed a
wish to be dissected, this wish was to be carried out unless the relatives
raised any objection. No body might be moved for anatomical purposes until
forty-eight hours after death, nor until the expiration of a twenty-four
hours' notice to the Inspector of Anatomy; a proper death certificate had
also to be signed by the medical attendant before the body could be moved.
Provision was made for the decent removal of all bodies, and for their
burial in consecrated ground, or in some public burial-ground in use for
persons of that religious persuasion to which the person, whose body was
so removed, belonged. A certificate of the interment was to be sent to the
Inspector within six weeks after the day on which the body was received.
No licensed person was to be liable to any prosecution, penalty,
forfeiture, or punishment for having a body in his possession for
anatomical purposes according to the provisions of the Act.

Perhaps the most important clause was that which did away with the
dissection of the bodies of murderers. This was done by Section XVI.,
which ran as follows:

"And whereas an Act was passed in the Ninth Year of the Reign of His late
Majesty, for consolidating and amending the Statutes in England relative
to Offences against the Person, by which latter Act it is enacted, that
the Body of every Person convicted of Murder shall, after Execution,
either be dissected or hung in Chains, as to the Court which tried the
Offender shall deem meet; and that the Sentence to be pronounced by the
Court shall express that the Body of the Offender shall be dissected or
hung in Chains, whichever of the Two the Court shall order. Be it enacted,
That so much of the said last-recited Act as authorizes the Court, if it
shall see fit, to direct that the Body of a Person convicted of Murder
shall after Execution, be dissected, be and the same is hereby repealed:
and that in every case of Conviction of any Prisoner for Murder, the Court
before which such Prisoner shall have been tried shall direct such
Prisoner either to be hung in Chains or buried within the Precincts of the
Prison in which such Prisoner shall have been confined after conviction,
as to such Court shall deem meet; and that the sentence to be pronounced
by the Court shall express that the body of such Prisoner shall be hung in
Chains, or buried within the Precincts of the Prison, whichever of the two
the Court shall order."

Three Inspectors