The Edinburgh Body Snatchers: Murder at Halloween

Summary

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford: The Edinburgh Body Snatchers: Murder at Halloween

Released on October 25, 2024 by Pushkin Industries

In this gripping episode of Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford, host Tim Harford delves into the dark history of Edinburgh's infamous body snatchers, William Burke and William Hare. Through a blend of true crime and economic analysis, Harford unpacks the tragic consequences of societal and legislative shortcomings in early 19th-century Scotland.

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1. Introduction to Burke and Hare

The episode opens with Tim Harford setting the stage in Edinburgh, Scotland, during Halloween of 1828. A seemingly ordinary night unfolds into a series of horrifying events as Madge Doherty, a distressed woman, seeks help in a local bar.

Tim Harford [03:30]: "On Halloween in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1828. A short, middle-aged woman walks into a bar where a man sits drinking. She asks the barkeeper, can you help me?"

Madge's encounter with William Burke leads her to believe they've found a kindred spirit, but this meeting marks the beginning of a sinister chapter in Edinburgh's history.

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2. The Rise of Burke and Hare's Crimes

Burke and his friend William Hare, both lodgers at a boarding house, face a logistical nightmare when a deceased lodger’s body remains unclaimed. The local authority's inability to efficiently handle such cases pushes Burke and Hare into a morally corrupt solution.

William Burke [07:57]: "You'll want to see Dr. Knox. Number 10, Surgeon Square."

They approach Dr. Robert Knox, a prominent figure in Edinburgh's medical community, seeking to sell the deceased lodger's body for dissection. This marks the beginning of their involvement in the illegal trade of cadavers, driven by the demand from medical schools.

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3. Dr. Robert Knox and the Medical Demand

Dr. Knox, renowned for his exceptional teaching skills, plays a pivotal role in the story. His medical school’s insatiable need for cadavers creates a lucrative, albeit illicit, market that Burke and Hare exploit.

Tim Harford [09:57]: "Seven pounds and ten shillings. That's about what you'd earn for three months of hard manual labor."

Burke and Hare’s initial success emboldens them, leading to a steady stream of bodies to supply Dr. Knox’s classes. However, their methods soon escalate beyond mere opportunism.

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4. The Economics of Repugnant Markets

Harford transitions into an analysis of modern economic concepts, particularly those introduced by Nobel laureate Alvin Roth. He explores the idea of "repugnant markets" — transactions deemed morally unacceptable despite potential mutual benefits.

Tim Harford [10:31]: "Repugnant markets are markets we ban because we just don't like the idea of there being a market makes us go yuck."

Drawing parallels between the illegal cadaver trade of the 1820s and contemporary issues like kidney sales and prostitution, Harford highlights the societal reluctance to legitimize certain markets, even when they could alleviate significant problems.

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5. The Climax: Halloween's Fatal Mistake

As Burke and Hare grow bolder, their crimes reach a tragic peak on Halloween night. They murder a well-known young woman, Madge Doherty, whose body poses a greater risk of detection due to her familiarity within the community.

William Burke [27:27]: "No, no, no, I'm sure you must be mistaken. It can't possibly be anyone you know."

This heinous act underscores the limits of their operations and sets the stage for their eventual downfall.

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6. The Trial and Aftermath

The legal proceedings against Burke and Hare reveal the challenges of 19th-century Scottish law, which allowed for a "not proven" verdict, a middle ground between guilty and innocent. Under pressure, Hare turns King's evidence, leading to the conviction of William Burke.

Tim Harford [37:06]: "The only way to guarantee at least one conviction, the prosecutor reluctantly decided, was to cut a deal with one of the accused."

Burke is sentenced to hang, while Hare and his wife evade severe punishment. The public outcry forces legislative changes, culminating in the Anatomy Act of 1832, which aimed to regulate the supply of cadavers and prevent such atrocities.

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7. Insights and Lessons

Harford concludes by reflecting on the economic and ethical lessons from Burke and Hare's story. He emphasizes the importance of aligning legal frameworks with societal values to prevent the emergence of illicit markets.

Tim Harford [40:48]: "Back in 1828, William Burke was sentenced to hang and be dissected. No clever attempt at reframing there."

By integrating historical recounting with economic theory, Harford illustrates how repugnance towards certain transactions can lead to unintended negative consequences, such as the rise of illegal markets and the exploitation of vulnerable individuals.

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Notable Quotes

• Tim Harford [10:31]: "Repugnant markets are markets we ban because we just don't like the idea of there being a market makes us go yuck."

• William Burke [38:33]: "In the whole history of civilized society, there never has been exhibited such a system of barbarous and savage iniquity..."

• Tim Harford [33:19]: "As the economist Alvin Roth discovered, people find it easy to discuss the potential costs of legalizing a market they find repugnant, such as a market in kidneys. It's harder to get them to think about the costs of keeping that market banned."

• Madge Doherty [37:00]: "It means we think you probably did it, but we're not quite sure enough to send you to the gallows."

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Conclusion

"The Edinburgh Body Snatchers: Murder at Halloween" serves as a sobering reminder of how societal needs, when misaligned with ethical considerations and legal safeguards, can lead to catastrophic outcomes. Through the lens of Burke and Hare's gruesome saga, Harford not only narrates a tale of human depravity but also prompts listeners to contemplate the delicate balance between demand, legality, and morality in shaping human behavior.

Transcript

[Tim Harford]

Pushkin.

Hello dear listeners, it is Tim Harford here with an exciting idea up my sleeve. I want to know if you'd be interested in joining a cautionary club with additional member only content. And with that in mind, the Cautionary Tales team and I have put together a survey. We'd like to find out exactly what kind of content you're keen to get your hands on. Would you like a cautionary newsletter? Perhaps some extra conversations like my last one with Adam Grant? Or maybe you have another idea for us altogether? The link is in the episode description and it will take you just a few short minutes to answer, so please do take a moment to fill it out and let us know your thoughts. We are really keen to hear from you.

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[Tim Harford]

Hello, I have a frighteningly good episode of.

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Cautionary Tales for you this Halloween.

[Tim Harford]

It was recorded in front of a live audience at the podcast show in London, and I shared the stage with actors and and our sound supremo Pascal Wise, who not only created grisly sound effects by hand, but played the trombone too.

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I hope you enjoy this nightmarish marriage.

[Tim Harford]

Of true crime and economics. October 31. Halloween in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1828. A short, middle aged woman walks into a bar where a man sits drinking. She asks the barkeeper, can you help me?

[Madge Doherty]

I've come to Edinburgh to see my son. He's working here. But when I went to the last address he gave me, the landlady said he left three days ago. I don't know where he is and he doesn't know I'm here. I've no money and no place to stay.

[Tim Harford]

The man who's drinking at the bar looks up.

[William Burke]

Wait a minute. You're from Ireland. I can tell by your accent.

[Madge Doherty]

Yes, I'm from Donegal. My name's Madgy Doherty.

[William Burke]

No way. I'm a Doherty too. And I family in Donegal. Sure, we must be related. Let me buy you a wee drink.

[Tim Harford]

What an amazing coincidence.

[William Burke]

Now Margie, you must stay the night with me and my wife.

[Tim Harford]

The man takes Madge Doherty back to a room in a shared house, 16ft by 7. In the room is a wooden bed with straw for a mattress and a pile of straw to the side. He gives her a drink and some food and another drink. Then he says, right enough.

[William Burke]

I need to pop out now. I'll be back.

[Tim Harford]

Macidoshti goes in search of someone to talk to. She pokes her head around the door of the neighbouring room, introduces herself to the woman there and tells her sad story.

[Madge Doherty]

You know, I really should be looking for my son. I'll go out searching now.

[Tim Harford]

Leave it till tomorrow, says the neighbor. Halloween's a busy night. You don't know the city and you've obviously had a lot to drink. You may not easily find your way back here.

[Madge Doherty]

Oh, you're right. I'll just wait till Mr. Doherty gets in.

[Tim Harford]

Mr. Doherty? Says the neighbor.

[Madge Doherty]

Mr. Doherty, my relative. Your neighbor. He lives in that room there.

[Tim Harford]

He's not called Doherty, says the neighbor. He's called Burke. The two women look at each other, confused. Does Maggie start to sense that something is wrong? Perhaps not. She is very drunk. Mr. Dohley, or rather Mr. Burke, comes back. He's with a friend and both their wives. The four of them take Mangy Doherty back to Burke's room. Then they shove Matidoshti down to the bed. Burke pins her down while the other man clamps his hands over her nose and mouth. She can't move. She can't call for help. She can't breathe. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to Cautionary Tales live in London, November 1827, a year before Madgie Doherty's fateful Halloween. William Hare has a problem. Hare runs a cramped and cruddy boarding house in a slum part of Edinburgh's Old Town, where the buildings are packed tightly together and the smells from the nearby tanneries compete with those from sewage hurled from windows into the street. One of Hare's lodgers has just died and the dead man seems to have no relatives or friends to take the body away. Hare tells the local authority and they say we'll get it and bury it in a pauper's grave. But a full day passes and nobody comes. That body's taking up space I could be renting out, Hare complains to his friend William Burke. Burke and Hare have both heard rumours that it's possible to sell human bodies to medical schools. Could they sell Hare's dead lodger? Neither has any idea how to go about it. So they make their way to another, more prosperous part of Edinburgh, where the medical schools have their quarters. They ask around, but nervously. They assume that what they're doing must be against the law. Are you a student? We've heard that medical schools are sometimes in need of human bodies.

[William Burke]

You'll want to see Dr. Knox. Number 10, Surgeon Square.

[Tim Harford]

Burke and Hare make their way to Surgeon Square and find number 10. One of the doctor's assistants opens the door.

[Madge Doherty]

The doctor's not here now. Ah, you have a subject. Bring it after dark.

[Tim Harford]

Back at Hare's boarding house, someone from the local authority has been round with a coffin and put the body in it. Soon a porter will come to take the coffin away. Burke and Hare have no time to lose if they want to get some cash for their dead lodger. They gently pry up the nails on the coffin lid, haul the body out and stuff it in a sack. And when the porter comes, he's bound to notice. If the coffin's empty, they'd better put something heavy in it. They go to a nearby tannery where piles of bark are crushed for the tannin used to make leather hides. Burke and Hare take a load of the bark. They tip it into the coffin, nail down the lid again, then they wait for dark to fall. The two friends heave the sack with the lodger's body through the streets of Edinburgh back to the doctor's place.

[Madge Doherty]

Come on in, then. You're new, I take it. Well, up the stairs and lay the subject out on that table there for the doctor. Oh, and you'll have to take the nightshirt off it.

[Tim Harford]

Burke and Hare take the nightshirt off the body. Into the room comes Dr. Knox, a striking figure in his mid-30s, prematurely bald with just one eye. Smallpox took the other. And always flamboyantly dressed with his gold chains and embroidered waistcoat. Dr. Knox glances at the naked body, nods his head and says, let's say.

[William Burke]

Seven pounds and ten shillings.

[Tim Harford]

Seven pounds and ten shillings. That's about what you'd earn for three months of hard manual labor. Burke and Hare can hardly believe their luck. The assistant gives them the money and escorts them back to the door. Is nobody going to ask them where they got the body? Or who it was? Or what gives them the right to sell it? Apparently not. Can it really be that easy? Apparently so.

[Madge Doherty]

We'll be glad to see you again when you have another body to dispose of.

[Tim Harford]

Burke and Hare had assumed that what they were doing must be illegal. It was not. The law said a dead person's possessions pass on to the next of kin. That's why Dr. Knox's assistant insisted on the nightshirt being taken off the body. Legally, that nightshirt must belong to someone, even if it wasn't clear who. Dr. Knox could get in trouble if he bought it. But the body itself was a different matter. When a person died, their next of kin didn't own the body. In the eyes of the law, a human body was not a thing that could be owned at all. And if it couldn't be owned, then, logically speaking, it couldn't be stolen. Burke and Hare had broken no law by taking the lodger's body. Dr. Knox had broken no law in buying it. Lecturers like Dr. Knox needed bodies to teach their students. For years, the law had given medical schools the bodies of criminals who'd been hanged. Indeed, knowing you'd be publicly dissected was seen as part of the punishment. But more and more people were training as doctors, and nowhere near enough criminals were being sentenced to death. By the 1820s, a black market had sprung up to meet the demand for bodies. Some, like Hare's lodger, were taken straight from their deathbeds to the medical school. But most were supplied by grave robbers or resurrectionists. They'd sneak into graveyards in the dead of night and dig up a recently buried corpse. As nobody owned those bodies, it wasn't stealing as long as they took the clothes off the body and put them back in the coffin. There was one law the resurrectionists were breaking. It was illegal to violate A sepulcher. But the punishments weren't severe and prosecutions were rare. The authorities mostly looked the other way. No one wanted to put the medical schools out of business. Still, perhaps there was a better way. Some people floated ideas to create a legal supply of cadavers, as the author Lisa Rosner describes in her book on Burke and Hair. One proposal was to let universities have the bodies of people who died in poorhouses. These people had relied on handouts from the public purse, the argument went. Surely we could dissect them when they died instead of spending yet more on a pauper's burial. Great idea, said the radical politician Henry Hunt. How about we start with the people who've benefited most from public money during their lives?

[William Burke]

Now, I would recommend. No, listen, listen. I would recommend in the first place.

[Tim Harford]

That the bodies of all our kings.

[William Burke]

Be dissected instead of expending.

[Tim Harford]

Seven or.

[William Burke]

Eight hundred thousand pounds of the public money for their internment. Next, I would dissect all our hereditary legislators.

[Tim Harford]

Hunt's objections struck a chord with the public. Poor people couldn't afford to get treated by doctors, so why should their bodies be the ones doctors trained on? But what were the alternatives? Another, more imaginative proposal came from the Royal College of Physicians of Create a fully legalized, regulated market. Let living people sell to medical schools the right to use their body after they die. It wouldn't be wise, they added, for such a market to let relatives sell bodies after death. That might create a legally sanctioned incentive for murder. But of course, there already was a legally murky market, and the incentive for murder that it created was all too clear. A few weeks have passed since Burke and Hare received their seven pounds and ten shillings. And they sense the possibility of another payday because another of William Hare's lodgers has fallen gravely ill. An old man with no known relatives. He's delirious with fever, too weak to speak. He is going to die, isn't he? Hopefully soon. What's taking him so long? Is there any way he might be encouraged to hurry up? Burke presses a pillow onto the man's face while Hare pins him down to stop him struggling. It doesn't take long. Cautionary tales will be back after the break.

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[William Burke]

Welcome gentlemen. Take your seats. Today we will consider the causes and treatment of lateral curvature of the human.

[Tim Harford]

Spine Dr. Robert Knox ran the most popular medical school in Edinburgh in the winter of 1827. He had 247 students, almost twice as many as his nearest competitor. That's partly because Knox was such a brilliant teacher. As one writer put in gifts of.

[Madge Doherty]

Speech, he was unequaled his harmonious voice, his clearness, his logical precision, the enormous amount of information which flowed without effort from his lips.

[Tim Harford]

Knox was also snooty, even cruel, when he described his rivals. He mocked them when they didn't have enough cadavers to teach with and had to use illustrations instead.

[William Burke]

Gentlemen, would you pay to study at their School of Pictorial Anatomy?

[Tim Harford]

That's the other reason Knox's school was so successful. He ensured his students had a steady supply of corpses. Knox would assign six students to each body. They'd rotate around, taking turns to practice with a scalpel, forceps or saw, peeling back the skin and fat, to examine the muscles and ligaments on the limbs, cutting through the ribs to explore the lungs and the heart, trying out specific surgeries such as extracting bladder stones. As another eminent surgeon put it, it.

[William Burke]

Is only when we have acquired dexterity on the dead subject that we can be justified in interfering with the living.

[Tim Harford]

Students knew they could rely on Dr. Knox to give them that chance to acquire dexterity. And grave robbers knew that when they brought a body to Knox, he wouldn't haggle too hard or fob you off with a credit note. He'd give you a fair price and prompt payment in cash. By April 1828, William Burke and William Hare were becoming regulars at Dr. Knox's place on Surgeon Square. After the old man they'd brought the doctor, an old woman and a middle aged man who clearly had jaundice and could plausibly have died from that. They knew the routine now. They'd bring the body naked in a tea chest. They'd follow the doctor's assistant up the stairs, lay the body out on the dissection table for the doctor to examine. But the latest body was quite unlike the others they'd brought so far. This naked corpse was that of a young girl, maybe 18 years old. Young and beautiful. The doctor's assistant took one look at her and.

[Madge Doherty]

I know that girl. She's called Mary. She lives in Canongate. I saw her a couple of weeks ago and she looked in perfect health.

[Tim Harford]

The body was cool, but not yet stiff. Clearly, the girl had not been dead for more than a few hours.

[Madge Doherty]

Where did you get that body?

[Tim Harford]

Burke and Hare must have felt the panic rising in their chests. Up to now, they'd actually been pretty smart. They'd killed people who nobody would notice were missing, who were old or obviously diseased. But perhaps they'd been smart only by accident, because now they'd gone and murdered a healthy young woman whose face was known around town. Standing in front of the doctor and his assistant, they must suddenly have realized how reckless that was. Burke tried to think on his feet.

[William Burke]

We bought it. Yeah, we bought the body from an old woman on the canongate.

[Tim Harford]

Dr. Knox looked at them. Perhaps he believed them. Perhaps he didn't. Either way.

[William Burke]

Hmm. Well, that's fine, gentlemen. Shall we say eight pounds?

[Tim Harford]

In the 1990s, the economist Alvin Roth became fascinated by kidneys. When a person has kidney failure, their life can sometimes be saved by a transplant. But that requires not only a donor, but a donor whose kidney matches in terms of blood type and tissue type. It's possible for a living person to donate a kidney. We have two. And most of the time we can function just as well with only one. Sometimes a family member will offer to donate a kidney to save their loved one's life. But often, frustratingly, the would be donor isn't a match. Sometimes a patient will get lucky. A total stranger will make the offer motivated by pure altruism. But there's one thing a patient can't pay someone to give them a kidney. Thinking as an economist, Roth wondered, why not? You have a sick, wealthy person who needs a kidney. You have a poor, healthy person who's willing to lose a kidney for the right price. Two consenting adults who want to engage in a transaction that will benefit them both. Why should we stop them? And yet we do stop them. Selling kidneys is against the law in almost every country in the world. Roth was curious. What exactly is it we object to about a legally sanctioned market in kidneys? Perhaps we're concerned that sellers wouldn't fully understand the risks, but you could regulate the market to make sure consent was informed. Maybe we worry that people might be coerced into selling their kidney, but we already have safeguards to ensure that family members who come forward are not under duress. Or maybe the concern is about where it could lead. Legalise kidney sales and before you know it, you might have mortgage lenders requiring your kidney as extra collateral. Again, says Roth, you could write laws to guard against that. But even if you imagine laws and regulations that are completely watertight, Roth found people still don't want it to be legal for others to sell their kidneys, even if they can't articulate exactly why. Roth realised he'd stumbled on an idea that didn't have a name in the economic literature. In 2007, he published a paper that gave it a name Repugnant markets. These are markets we ban because we just don't like the idea of there being a market makes us go yuck. Roth pointed to other markets that people find repugnant. In many countries, sex is like donating a kidney. It's fine to do it for love, but against the law to do it for money. Often, though, when we ban a repugnant market, we force it underground. There's a global trade in kidneys, and banning prostitution doesn't tend to stop it happening. Societies must then decide how hard to actually try to stamp the market out. Sometimes the answer is not very hard at all. Paying for sex in many places is technically illegal, but tacitly tolerated. The same could be said of that more literally underground activity, robbing graves for bodies. In 1820s Edinburgh, nobody wanted to mount a serious crackdown on violating sepulchres. But nor was there any appetite for setting up the kind of legalised market in cadavers suggested by the Royal College of Physicians. The thought was far too repugnant. Faced with a hard choice, the authorities tried to ignore it. But Burke and Hare were about to make it impossible to look the other way. On the streets of Edinburgh's Old Town, one of the best known characters was a teenage boy whom the locals called Daft Jamie. He spent his days wandering barefoot, singing gabbling nonsense and telling jokes and riddles. Sometimes other boys made fun of him and Jamie got tearful. But he'd never fight them, because only bad boys fight. People liked Daft Jamie. They gave him little gifts of money, food or clothes. One day, William Hare's wife came across Jamie looking for his mother. Come with me, she said. Back at the boarding house, she left Jamie with hair and a bottle of whiskey and went to fetch Burke. She ushered Burke into the room and locked the door. At Surgeon's Square. Dr. Knox's assistant recognized the body at once.

[Madge Doherty]

I know who that is. That's Daft Jamie.

[William Burke]

No, no, no, I'm sure you must be mistaken. It can't possibly be anyone you know. Still, let's prepare this one for the students quickly now, shall we?

[Tim Harford]

By the time people started to notice that no one had seen Daft Jamie for a while, the evidence of the murder had been cut up into tiny pieces and disposed of. Burke and Hare had got away with it again. They must have thought they could get away with anything. Then, On Halloween in 1828, they made one mistake too many Cautionary tales will be back after the break.

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[Tim Harford]

Like many young couples in Edinburgh's crowded Old Town, Anne and James Gray couldn't afford to rent a whole room, so they sublet space in a room from someone else. William Burke and his wife, the Greys, and their infant son had been lodging with the Burkes for just a couple of weeks when, on Halloween, William Burke came home with a guest he'd met at a bar. Madge Doherty. Burke said to Anne, right, I want.

[William Burke]

You to ada here for the night. I need your bed for my relative here.

[Madge Doherty]

Margie, where are we supposed to go?

[William Burke]

Don't worry my friend Hare's got A wee lodging house. You can sleep better tonight.

[Tim Harford]

Anne and James weren't happy, but they left. When they returned in the morning, there was no sign of Maggie and Burke seemed strangely flustered.

[William Burke]

Have a drink.

[Tim Harford]

Burke poured them glasses of whiskey. And then he started pouring whiskey all over the pile of straw in the corner of the room.

[Madge Doherty]

What are you doing that for? You'll make the whole room stink of whiskey.

[William Burke]

Oh, I just want to empty the whiskey bottle so that I can, you know, go out and get some more.

[Tim Harford]

Very odd. Was there perhaps some other smell Burke was anxious to disguise? The Greys kept their clothes near that pile of straw and crossed the room to get her infant son a clean pair of stockings.

[William Burke]

Get away from there.

[Tim Harford]

Burke's behaviour was getting stranger and stranger. For the rest of the day, either Burke or his wife sat close to the pile of straw, eyeing the Greys suspiciously. Anne later told the police, I thought.

[Madge Doherty]

There was something that was not right.

[Tim Harford]

At last, just before darkfall, Anne got her chance to investigate. Burke had left the house to run some kind of errand. Then Burke's wife stepped out for a moment too.

[Madge Doherty]

The first thing I got on lifting up the straw was the woman's right arm.

[Tim Harford]

Anne and her husband lifted more of the straw to reveal the head with blood around the mouth. They both recognized the woman they'd met briefly the night before. Madge Doherty. Anne and James Gray pack up their belongings, grab their infant son and make for the door. On their way out of the house, they meet Burke's wife coming back in.

[Madge Doherty]

What the hell's going on? There's a corpse in the room.

[Tim Harford]

Burke's wife falls to her knees. Don't tell anyone, she begs. We'll give you money.

[Madge Doherty]

God forbid.

[Tim Harford]

The Greys push past Burke's wife and go to a police station to tell their story. By the time a policeman arrives at Burke's room, the body's gone, but there's blood on the straw. And the neighbours say they've just seen Burke and another man taking out a heavy looking tea chest. If that was a body, thinks the policeman, where might they have taken it? The policeman knocks on the door at 10 Surgeons Square.

[Madge Doherty]

Yes, indeed. I've just taken delivery of a cadaver in a tea chest. You'd like to see it? Of course. Come on in.

[Tim Harford]

As the economist Alvin Roth discovered, people find it easy to discuss the potential costs of legalising a market they find repugnant, such as a marketing kidneys. It's harder to get them to think about the costs of keeping that market banned. But Those costs are real. The people who'd be willing to sell a kidney have to do without the money they could have earned. Of course, we hate to think of people selling a kidney only because they're poor and desperate. But banning kidney sales doesn't make the poverty and desperation go away. Then there are the people who'd like to buy a kidney but can't. They end up spending countless hours tied to a dialysis machine if they're lucky. If they're unlucky, they end up dead. Still, that widespread feeling of repugnance isn't something you can just wish away. Roth asked himself, is there a way to create a mechanism that works like a market so it gets more kidneys to more patients, but that doesn't trigger a repugnance response. Roth helped to design kidney exchanges. Imagine that you and I both need a kidney and both our partners are willing to donate. My partner's kidney isn't a match for me. But it is for you. And your partner's kidney isn't a match for you, but it is for me. So we swap donors. Roth's exchanges take this simple swap and make it work on a bigger scale. They can link dozens of donors in one chain. It's like a market for kidneys, but instead of paying with money, you pay with a willing donor. Nobody finds it repugnant. Roth won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work in designing new kinds of markets. Perhaps if Alvin Roth had been around in 1820s Edinburgh, he could have found some equally clever way to get more cadavers to more medical schools. Something like the idea of the Royal College of Physicians to reward the living in exchange for their body after death. The absence of such a mechanism had costs. Just ask Maggie Doherty. William Burke insists to the policeman that he has no idea how Madgie Doghty ended up dead.

[William Burke]

None at all.

[Tim Harford]

They were all drinking and singing and dancing, he says, with William Hare and both their wives. And then they suddenly noticed Madgy wasn't there anymore.

[William Burke]

Sure, she must have crawled into the Palestra and, you know, died.

[Tim Harford]

A likely story. But could the public prosecutor prove beyond reasonable doubt that Burke and Hare and their wives were guilty of murder? Forensic science was less advanced than today. The doctors said the state of Madgidocherty's corpse was consistent with her having been forcibly suffocated. They couldn't say for certain that she didn't choke to death on her own vomit. In Scottish law, it was notoriously hard to get a jury to convict for murder. Other legal systems offer A jury. Just two possible verdicts, guilty or not guilty. Scottish law adds a third possibility, not proven.

[Madge Doherty]

It means we think you probably did it, but we're not quite sure enough to send you to the gallows.

[Tim Harford]

The only way to guarantee at least one conviction, the prosecutor reluctantly decided, was to cut a deal with one of the accused. Testify and we'll let you off. William Hare jumped at the chance to turn king's evidence. Under Scottish law, a man couldn't testify against his wife. So Hare's wife was off the hook too. With immunity from prosecution, Hare confessed to the murder of Madgy Doherty and daft Jamie and young Mary and that sick old man in the lodging house and the old woman and the jaundiced man and that old grandma and a 12 year old grandchild. And 16 murders in all. The police were astonished. But in 15 of those cases, the evidence had long ago been dissected away. Only Madgey Doherty's body remained. And so it was for the murder of Madgey Doherty that Burke and his wife stood trial. Burke's wife, the jury found. Not proven Burke, though guilty, the judge left no doubt about what he thought.

[William Burke]

In the whole history of civilized society, there never has been exhibited such a system of barbarous and savage iniquity, or anything at all corresponding in atrocity to this cold, hypocritical, calculating and bloody murder. One of the most monstrous delineations of human depravity.

[Tim Harford]

William Burke was sentenced to hang. Burke and Hare's murders focused the minds of politicians. They had to remove the incentive for robbing graves and committing murder. They passed the Anatomy act, which gave medical schools the right to take bodies from workhouses, prisons or hospitals if no one had claimed them within 48 hours of death. Campaigning politicians continued to object. The law was commandeering the bodies of the poor, they said, to train doctors whose services only the rich could afford. But was there a better alternative? If Alvin Roth had been around in the 1820s to think that question through, what might he have suggested? Roth gives us a clue. In his paper, Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets. He quotes an editorial from the Lancet in 1824, four years before the Edinburgh murders, which argued for ending the historical practice of giving medical schools the bodies of hanged murderers. It only keeps up the prejudice against dissection, they wrote. That would have been a good start in overcoming repugnance, says Roth. Instead of seeing dissection as punishment, you'd try to reframe it as an altruistic contribution to advancing medical knowledge. Many people see it that way today, when they leave their bodies to science. The present day University of Edinburgh, for instance, assures potential donors that were it.

[Madge Doherty]

Not for such acts of selflessness, it would be impossible to maintain Scotland's high educational reputation in the medical professions. And for this we are extremely grateful.

[Tim Harford]

Back in 1828, William Burke was sentenced to hang and be dissected. No clever attempt at reframing there. Thousands of people queued to see Burke's naked body on the dissection table. In museums in Edinburgh, you can still see his skeleton and a pocketbook made from his skin. In the university's archives is a letter written in Burke's blood. But what about William Hare and the wives? People in Edinburgh were outraged. They'd got off scot free. All were chased out of town by angry mobs. A mob gathered too, outside the home of Dr. Knox. They hung his effigy from a tree. Why hadn't he asked more questions about the bodies? He could have stopped the murders at an earlier stage. Knox was unrepentant. He carried on his lectures as usual, talking over the shouts of protesters outside his lecture room. Ignore them, he told his students.

[William Burke]

The assailants of our peace may be big and menace, but they are too cowardly an act to confront such a phalanx. Body of gentlemen as I see before me.

[Tim Harford]

Dr. Knox eventually moved to London, where his notoriety posed less of a nuisance. When he died, aged 71, he left clear instructions about what should happen to his body. Knox had always insisted on the importance of cadavers to train up doctors. So did he make his own final, selfless contribution to advancing medical science. He did not lay me to rest.

[William Burke]

In the churchyard where the wild flowers bloom and the sun might shine on the green sod above my grave.

[Tim Harford]

This live edition of Cautionary Tales was written by me, Tim Harford with Andrew Wright. Tonight you heard the voice sounds of Ed Gohan and Stella Harford. Our sound designer, composer and live trombonist was Pascal Wise. Additional sound design from Tom Berry. Sarah Nix edited the script thanks to Ryan Dilley. The show was produced by Alice Finds with Marilyn Ross. Thanks to Avril Tucker, the teams at TEG Live Europe, the podcast show and Aztec Porsche 3 Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember to rate, share and review. If you want to hear the show ad free, sign up on the show page at Apple Podcasts or Pushkin FM plus.

[William Burke]

Sa.

[Tim Harford]

Hello, dear listeners, it is Tim Harford here with an exciting idea up my sleeve. I want to know if you'd be interested in joining a cautionary club with additional member only content. And with that in mind, the Cautionary Tales team and I have put together a survey. We'd like to find out exactly what kind of content you're keen to get your hands on. Would you like a cautionary newsletter? Perhaps some extra conversations like my last one with Adam Grant? Or maybe you have another idea for us altogether? The link is in the episode description and it will take you just a few short minutes to answer, so please do take a moment to fill it out and let us know your thoughts. We are really keen to hear from you.

Thank you.

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