In addition, dissections were commonly associated with executed, i.e., hanged criminals, thus many perceived morbid anatomy for anatomical studies as punishment that is only justified to inflict on the morally condemned.
[2] Medical grave robbing incited widespread anger and abhorrence, resulting in at least seventeen full-fledged anatomy riots in the United States between 1785 and 1855, in Connecticut, Vermont, Ohio, and elsewhere.
[1][page needed] In response to the increasing hospital competition for and public opposition against bodies for pathological anatomy, in 1820s the anatomists in America began demanding legal protection for the acquisition of cadavers.
This legislation allowed medical schools access to "unclaimed" bodies, often those of people who died in workhouses, hospitals or other similar institutions and had no money for proper burial.
Anatomists also appealed to taxpayers by arguing that expenditures could be saved on burying the indigents in society and the poor could be motivated to work harder and not seek social relief.
These acts were a form of retributive justice, contending that the poor, like the criminal, owed a debt to society, which could be repaid through offering their bodies for the advancement of medical science.
[1][page needed] The anatomy acts did relieve medical institutions' shortage of bodies and significantly reduced grave robbing.
As the medical profession continued to expand and some states were yet to pass anatomy acts, illegal trading of bodies still endured.
By the end of the nineteenth century, most states had enacted anatomy acts, except those in the South that obtained bodies through predominantly black prison populations.
[1]: 134 The anatomy acts resulted in a moral condemnation of the poor and a general fear of falling into the abyss of the "unclaimed," driving large changes in the funeral economy.
Humanitarian movements in the mid to late nineteenth century against the legislation propelled a rapid increase in philanthropic organizations offering burials for the poor.