Ohio Medical College Students with Surgical Instruments, Dissecting Cadaver, circa 1876

Late 19th-century medical schools employed cadaver dissection to teach human anatomy. A post-mortem dissection -- using bodies supplied by prisons or poorhouses or, sometimes, obtained from grave robbers -- became an important rite of passage for medical school students, who documented this instruction through photography. Photographs like this were personal reminders of a student's professional transformation and usually not intended for general viewing.