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 Greeks erect buildings for the dying |
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c. -430 |
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| Romans give soldiers free burial in army recruitment drive |
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c. -20 |
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 | Roman cremation
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| Romans take a lenient view over suicide |
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c. 50 |
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 | Seneca committing suicide in a bath
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| Christianity teaches the 'Art of Dying' |
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c. 1200 |
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 | The death of Dick Whittington
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| First public dissection of a human body in Christendom |
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c. 1315 |
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 | Mondino de' Luzzi dissecting at Bologna, c. 1315
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| Death from illness seen as a sign of God's displeasure |
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c. 1400 |
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 | Christ throwing pestilential arrows
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| Reformation dispenses with Purgatory |
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c. 1550 |
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 | Purgatory
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| Suicides buried with stakes through the heart |
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c. 1600 |
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 | Woman preparing to stab herself
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 Harvey dissects body of supposed 152-year-old |
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1635 |
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 | William Harvey dissecting the body of Thomas Parr
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| Acts of Burial in Woollen passed |
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1666 |
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 | Burial of a corpse wrapped in linen
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| Judges permitted to sentence murderers to death and dissection |
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1752 |
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 | Public execution, Spain
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| Royal Humane Society founded |
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1774 |
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 | Man brought ashore, apparently drowned
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| Dr Guillotin favours humane capital punishment |
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1789 |
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 | Marie Antoinette kneeling before the guillotine, 1793
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| Undertakers set up shop on British high streets |
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c. 1800 |
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 | The undertaker's visit
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| Autopsies become routine |
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c. 1810 |
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 | ‘Rest in peace'
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| Fear of premature burial hits epidemic proportions |
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1832 |
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 | ‘The precipitate burial'
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| Anaesthesia regarded as 'controlled death' |
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c. 1847 |
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 | Experiment with suspended animation
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| Working-class parents accused of murdering their children |
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c. 1850 |
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 | Babies watched by Death
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| Laws against suicide repealed in UK |
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1870 |
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 | Gin-mad girl throws herself from a bridge
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| Cremation introduced in Britain |
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1885 |
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 | William Price of Llantrisant
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| Pavlov experiments on dogs |
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1900 |
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 | Five experimental dogs in Pavlov's laboratory
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| Saunders founds hospice movement |
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1967 |
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 | Hospice care
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| Brain death defined |
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1977 |
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 | Resuscitation
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| Euthanasia legalized in Netherlands |
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2000 |
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 | ‘The right to choose a merciful death'
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