In 1832, two Scottish serial killers, William Burke and William Hare, spurred the passage of a law that would prevent medical students from practicing surgical procedures on donated corpses for nearly 150 years. The Anatomy Act of 1832 was finally repealed in 1984, long after the two men were executed for their practice of “donating” stolen or murdered bodies to medical schools for profit.
Throughout history, many other laws have likewise been repealed after outliving their social utility. In 2006, for example, a law requiring short wave (or “ham”) radio operators to take a Morse Code proficiency test was finally dropped from the law books, years after the mode of communication became functionally obsolete.
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