Poor lighting affects the outcome of any photograph. In the case of a dissection photograph, it can also contribute to the ambiguous appearance of a cadaver's skin and bones. The availability and quality of light within a dissecting room was contingent upon where it was located, be it on the school's topmost floor, a basement, or in a small windowless structure built elsewhere on the property. In some cases, a private interior space was abandoned altogether, and dissections were instead held outdoors, in the open air.

Dissecting rooms varied considerably from state to state and school to school. By the end of the 19th century, most (but not all) states had instituted anatomy acts, which provided most schools (but again, not all) with a legal and steady supply of cadavers. Flush with equal amounts of student bodies and dead bodies, schools like Jefferson Medical College and Rush Medical College (Chicago) expanded their laboratory facilities and spared no expense in the process. No longer dingy, cramped spaces, these new, cathedral-sized dissecting rooms accommodated hundreds of students, all dissecting at once, and all underneath a luminous combination of electric and gas lighting, and an immense skylight, which spanned nearly the entire length of the room. With these physical changes so too changed the visual economy of various dissecting rooms. In the case of Jefferson and Rush, classic group shots (four to six students and one cadaver) became a relative thing of the past. Instead, as Figure 10.1 shows, now the entire freshmen class could pose together among a sea of the deceased.

But not all schools had this luxury. At the onset of incorporation, until matriculation increased, and financial stability afforded the opportunity to build new structures according to their specifications, many schools located in major cities frequently rented their buildings or held classes in private homes. These schools had no choice but to improvise their dissecting facilities, adjusting the needs of the gross lab to the parameters of preexisting structures.