Overview

"Body snatcher. Grave robber. Mad scientist. Brilliant surgeon. Delve into the macabre world of St. Louis s Dr. Joseph Nash McDowell, a man so loathed by the public that he wore body armor and so idolized by his anatomy students that they dug up corpses for his experiments. This ghoulish doctor cast a pall over the city and left a host of fiendish mysteries. Did his mother s ghost actually help him escape an angry mob? Did he really hang the corpse of his daughter in Hannibal s Mark Twain Cave? What very real horrors remained in his medical college after loyal Unionists drove him out? Dissect a life surrounded by speculation and a legend littered with ghosts."""

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9781540202963

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Reviews

The life of the notorious St. Louis physician Joseph Nash McDowell (1805 1868) is recounted in this entertaining short narrative. Woven into the book are overviews of the practice of grave robbing, of medicine on the early American frontier, and of nineteenth-century embalming techniques, making for a lively look at one of Missouri s most infamous residents. Missouri Historical Review/

Author Information

Victoria Cosner has been involved with museums and historic sites for over thirty years. She holds a master s degree in American studies, specializing in cemetery landscapes and is a member of the Association for Gravestone Studies. She currently works for Missouri State Parks and lives in the St. Louis area. Lorelei Shannon has been Victoria s friend for thirty-five years and counting. They share a love of dark history and co-authored a book on the life of Madame Lalaurie.

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