The Murder Act of 1752 stipulated only the corpses of executed murderers were allowed to be used for dissection. This posed a huge problem for UK medical schools of the period, since it severely diminished the number of bodies which they could legally practice surgery on. Thus UK medical schools, doctors and anatomy clubs began to rely upon a shadowy group of people called the resurrection men (aka, burkers or body snatchers) for a steady stream of bodies.
Body snatching after 1752 became so commonplace family and friends would stand vigil before and after the body was buried in order to keep them safe. If you had a bit more coin to spend, iron coffins or an iron frame work (called a mortsafes) was installed to protect the body. The picture to the top is an example which can be found in Greyfriars churchyard in Scotland. The picture on the bottom left is a riveted coffin, another popular option at during this period.
An interesting note: while the bodies were stolen, their valuables and clothing were not. Why? Snatching a body was a misdemeanor, while theft could land the thief in prison.
This was a time before refrigeration, so the fresher the body the more money the resurrectionist received for it. So it was very important to visit the churchyards as soon as possible to obtain the body. Digging up the shallow graves with wooden spade (they made less noise), placing the dirt on a tarp so there would be less evidence of digging, or tunnelling over from another grave to pull the corpse out of the coffin to fool those standing watch over the fresh grave; all these methods were used by resurrection men to ply their trade.
Several groups took it one step further; William Burke and William Hare committed a series of serial murders (17 they admitted) in Edinburgh over a year which supplied well-known doctor Robert Knox with fresh bodies. Another set of men in London, Bishop and Williams got the same idea and admitted to murdering three people before they were stopped. To prove these types of murders were equal opportunity, Elizabeth Ross murdered Catherine Walsh, a lace seller, and sold her body to local surgeons. All of these people were executed for their crimes, the irony being their own corpses were now legally available to the surgeons and medical schools they had been supplying before.
The tarnished silver lining to this tales was the passage of the Anatomy Act of 1832, allowing any unclaimed body to be available for medical study, thus finally allowing a legitimate and ethical supply of cadavers to be available and thereby putting resurrection men out of business. One note here: the poor (prisoners or people in workhouses, hospitals & asylums) who often left bodies unclaimed, since they had no money for a proper burial, did not like this idea. Riots and vandalism to teaching hospitals broke out across London, from people fearing their bodies would be given up, even if that was not their wish, and that led to a more secretive community which revolves around cadavers to this day.
Why the history lesson you ask?
A new exhibition has opened up in the Museum Of London called: Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men (Oct. 19, 2012- April 14, 2012), stemming from the discovery of a forgotten cemetery in 2006 at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel where 262 bodies used by teachers and students of medicine were buried. These bodies show extensive evidence of dissection, amputation, autopsy and bone wiring, as well as animal remains used in teaching, pulling them together with the history of resurrection men, and the medical advancements made during this period.
The Museum of London has created a window into the city’s history, fascinating and macabre at the same time!
(Pictures from the BBC & Wikipedia)