This was the first law passed in the United States consigning the bodies of those who died in workhouses, hospitals, and similar institutions, the bodies of whom were "unclaimed," to medical schools for dissection. "Such measures assured the 'respectable' classes that their graves would not be plundered to provision the dissecting table, while providing anatomists with a steady suppply of free cadavers, and rescuing the profession from the taint of association with unsavory lower-class body snatchers...." (Sappol, A traffic in dead bodies, 4). John Collins Warren spearheaded the effort to get this legislation passed.

Digital facsimile from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.