Gravely Mistaken - Tales of Medicine, Mishaps and Body Snatching in Augusta, Georgia - E-book - ePub

Grave robbing is a suspected source of suply for the bodies used as specimens in the anatomy classes at the Medical College of Georgia in 1854. Two students take a break from their studies one night and have a drink at a local tavern. While there, they spy Grandison Harris, the slave purchased to work as a porter for the school. They decide to see what he has in the back of his wagon. A shovel and "the body" in a bag on the buckboard floor convince them that Harris is a resurrectionist.
The students resolve to play a trick on the porter. Removing "the body" from its bag and hiding it, one of the students crawls into the sack, intending to scare Harris. But, as the porter climbs in the wagon the prank goes wrong when the horse bolts and runs away. The student remains trapped in the bag and when he tries to wriggle free, Harris sees the movement and thinks "the body" has become an evil spirit.
The porter hits the squirming sack with a shovel, takes it back to the cemetery and puts it in the grave. The student is either dead or buried alive. While the mystery of mistaken body identities unfolds, case studies illustrating the medical treatments of the day are depicted. A few examples include surgery for kidney stones, use of traction for a broken bone; bleeding, purging and the application of plasters for Yellow Fever, and tending a worker suffering from heat stroke.