Less than Human: Estimated Origins of the Medical Waste at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery

Abstract Poor laws enacted in the early 19th century condemned the most destitute to confinement in almshouses, poor farms, and workhouses. These laws paralleled contemporary anatomy acts that turned the “unclaimed” dead from those institutions over to medical facilities for dissection. In essence, pauperism became punishable by anatomization. Thus dissection served the dual purpose of reinforcing social identity amongst the lower class and privileging the social identity of upper-class medical students. This study is an analysis of the material medical waste recovered from graves excavated at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery. My goal is to determine from which medical institution in Milwaukee County the waste, and thus the body, originated, in concert with ongoing, collaborative bioarchaeological analysis. This study utilizes a presence-absence analysis of types of medical waste found at burial locations alongside bioarchaeological evidence for types of postmortem medical intervention to determine the institutional origin of the medical waste.