| Summary: | The death of William Lanney in 1869 was thought to mark the virtual extinction of the Tasmanian Aboriginal race. European and colonial scientists longed to possess Lanney's bones for museum collections, and several of Hobart's medical men set about the business of harvesting them. In histories of racial relations in Tasmania, this episode has become an exemplar of the brutal process of settler colonialism in that place. However, the mutilation of Lanney's body also involved the dismemberment of a European man. Placing him at the centre of the episode reveals how the colony's medical men obtained 'subjects for dissection' when few were legally available, and tells us something rich about the history of medicine in Tasmania.
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