Its purpose was to greatly increase the number of cadavers available for legal dissection in medical schools.
The bill was proposed by John William Draper, co-founder and president of what is now the New York University School of Medicine.
He noted a significant deficit in the number of cadavers available for dissection by medical students in his classes.
Draper proposed that "all vagrants dying, unclaimed, and without friends, are to be given to the institutions in which medicine and surgery are taught for dissection".
[2] Proponents of the bill argued that it ensured that criminals and the poor "will make some returns to those whom they have burdened by their wants, or injured by their crimes", and would further prevent body snatching.