Sixth Club Cadaver Society (1893)

Members of the Sixth Club Cadaver Society at the University of Virginia pose with corpses and a skeleton in 1893. As part of their studies, these white medical students dissected corpses in the Anatomical Laboratory, a building near the Anatomical Theatre on the university's grounds.

An African American man, probably a custodian who worked in the laboratory, is seated next to the table holding a dead body. Hanging on the wall behind the group is a coffin-shaped plank with a humorous inscription noting that the law class died on March 21, 1893. Beneath that is a list of athletic events the class presumably lost.

Citation: University of Virginia Visual History Collection, RG-30/1/10.011, prints21917. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, Charlottesville, Va.