麻豆视频

Cadavers used in anatomy classes were buried in unmarked lots in Columbia Cemetery

The University of Colorado Department of Medicine and听Surgery opened in Boulder in 1883 with two students. By 1890, the medical听school included more than a dozen听students, two of them women. In听order to graduate, each student was required to dissect an entire human body.

Records of these cadavers reveal a little-known cross听section of life and death in Boulder County. The body parts were interred in听unmarked lots, where they remain today, in听Boulder's Columbia Cemetery.

Prior to the school's opening, Dr. Lumen M. Giffin moved听to Boulder from New York to become professor of anatomy and physiology.听In the early days, tuition for the听three-year program was a one-time fee of听$5 for in-state students and $10 for those from out of state.听The courses included lectures, chemical laboratories and听dissections.听听

One听of the bodies donated to Giffin's class was that of miner Frederick Nelson.听He had sought refuge from a forest fire and suffocated in the shaft of the Bald听Mountain听Mine near the town of Sunset. His relatives were unknown, and no one claimed听his remains.

Many听of the deceased met similarly unusual or violent deaths. According to coroners'听records, in 1909 Herman Schmidt's skull was crushed by a falling rock while听he worked as a laborer听on the construction of Barker Dam, below Nederland.听Schmidt was a recent immigrant with no known family or friends.听

No听one knew anything about Michael Clifford at the time of his death except his听name. He was murdered in a drunken brawl in the town of Marshall. The听university also welcomed his body.

Few, if any, of the cadavers used in the classroom听dissections were female until 1914, when Cyrus Deardoff donated the body of his听70-year-old wife, Ellen, who had been听declared insane and starved herself.听听

Cyrus had, at one time, been a prominent gold miner in听Ward. However, he died destitute a few months after Ellen's death. He saved the听expense of a funeral and the stigma of听being consigned to a pauper鈥檚 grave by agreeing听in advance听to give the university his body, as well.

The year was a busy one for the medical students. By听then, CU had purchased its second cemetery lot, and bought a third one a couple听years later.听

Additional bodies came from people who died by suicide or from influenza or other infectious diseases. Some, like Thomas听McCormick, died from an overdose of听morphine in the county jail.

Then听there was William Ryan, a farmer, who had suffered from chronic alcoholism and听was found dead in bed. He had no family, but he did have a watch and chain and听a horse and buggy. CU听got those items, too.

In 1924, citing a lack of appropriate medical facilities,听CU's medical school moved to Denver. In 2008, the school transformed itself听again with a move to the Anschutz Medical听Campus in Aurora.

A year before the school left Boulder, Giffin died of听a stroke at age 72. At the time, he was the oldest physician in Boulder.听He, too, was buried in Columbia Cemetery鈥攊ntact and in his own grave with听family members. But while Giffin is resting is peace, the other bodies in Columbia Cemetery are resting in pieces.

Top image:听Luman M. Giffin (center) and his class in the CU Medical School during the late 1890s. (Photo: courtesy Carnegie听Library for Local History, Boulder)

Silvia Pettem is a CU Boulder alum听(1969) and is the author of Separate Lives: Uncovering the Hidden Family听of Victorian Professor Mary Rippon. This column originally appeared in the Daily Camera. She can be reached at听.

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