← Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More
Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More
The Resurrectionists: Grave Robbers Who Built Modern Medicine
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In the early days of modern medicine, some of the most important scientific breakthroughs depended upon a deeply disturbing underground trade. Under the COVID of darkness, gangs known as Resurrectionists robbed fresh graves and sold bodies to anatomy schools hungry for cadavers. Their work helped train doctors in advanced science, but it also terrified the public and reshaped laws, ethics, and culture. Learn more about the Resurrectionists and their disturbing yet important legacy on on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Butcherbox. I got my most recent butcher box order and I was like a kid on Christmas morning. I got the works in this box. Steaks, pork, salmon and even a whole organic chicken. And the chicken's exciting because I've now switched to brining it for 24 hours before cooking, which makes it turn out incredibly juicy and moist. The chicken, of course, like all Butcherbox chicken, is free range and organic. If you want to cook with the best quality meats and seafood, you need to check out Butcherbox. Everything they provide is free of antibiotics, added hormones and mystery ingredients. As an exclusive offer, new listeners can get their choice between free sirloin tips, ground beef or chicken wings in every box for life, plus $20 off when you go to butcherbox.com everything. That's right, your choice of free sirloin tips, ground beef or chicken wings in every box for life, plus $20 off your first box and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com everything. And don't forget to use the link so they know I sent you. This episode is sponsored by Truwerk. If you ever had to work outside in the spring, you know how unpredictable it can be. Cold in the morning, warm by lunch, muddy by afternoon and maybe raining before dinner. That's why Truewerk stands out. They use advanced performance fabrics instead of old school cotton blends so their gear moves with you and handles changing conditions. The T2 work pant is built for spring weather with four way stretch for bending, kneeling and climbing, a water resistant finish to shed rain, and nine intelligently placed pockets to keep tools right where you need them. These pants have been tested for over 10 years by real trade pros on real job sites and have more than 15,000 five star reviews. I have a pair and I wish I had them years ago when I was traveling because they would have made the perfect travel pants. The work doesn't stop just because the weather changes. Upgrade to the T2 work pant and stay comfortable no matter what the day brings. Get 15% off your first order at TrueWerk.com with code everything that's T-R-U-E-W-E-R-K.com code everything true work built like it matters because it does. Understanding human anatomy took a surprisingly long time to develop, especially considering that everything we need to know is locked inside each of us. The reason it took so long is that the only way you can really understand what's under our skin is. Is to dissect cadavers. I mean, I suppose you could do it to living people, but I think the problem with that is pretty obvious. While it may seem rather macabre, cadavers are vital for understanding anatomy as they provide hands on reference material without risking anyone's safety. Allowing surgeons to train on human cadavers fosters a better understanding of human anatomy, encourages confident case handling, reduces misinformation and provides insight into anatomical differences, all without risk of harm to patients. But the reason why it took so long to learn about anatomy had to do with religious and cultural taboos. Many religions viewed the dissection of corpses as desecration and disrespectful to the person. This led to bans by religious institutions such as the Catholic Church that lasted for centuries. This restriction limited doctors understandings of human anatomy, since they could only research anatomical matters using animal cadavers. Because animals do not have the same anatomy as humans, this hindered the development of the field of medicine. In order to get cadavers to study, medical professionals and students resorted to the unsavory practice of body snatching. While body snatching is rare today, it was once common as institutions were desperate to expand their knowledge of the human body. As a result, medical facilities often bought stolen corpses from body snatchers, who who are known as resurrectionists. Body snatching had been around for centuries, with the first recorded case occurring in Bologna, Italy in 1319. However, the practice became much more common in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in Britain. In Great Britain, any human dissection was completely banned until the year 1506. That year, the Scottish King James IV gave permission for barber surgeons in Edinburgh to dissect criminals. England followed in 1540 when Henry VIII let barber surgeons receive four executed criminal corpses per year. And in 1564, Elizabeth I granted the College of Physicians the same right. The vast majority of doctors were not able to practice, and the number of corpses provided was very limited. The problem worsened as Britain opened more hospitals and medical schools, furthering the shortage of cadavers and forcing institutions to desperately seek alternate means for anatomical study. To help supply these cadavers, the British government passed the rather Bluntly named Murder act of 1752. This act required murderers after execution to be dissected or hanged by chains. The law was meant to deter people from committing murders, as many people viewed dissection as a fate worse than death. It also aimed to reduce body snatching by providing more cadavers to medical institutions. This new law benefited surgeons and the cadaver supply increased. However, it still wasn't nearly enough. Surgeons visited prisons and bribed guards to get more cadavers. This led to many bodies being illegally handed over to medical institutions. Local authorities in Britain were aware of the problem and sought further solutions. An example of one of these solutions was that in Edinburgh, anatomists could dissect any corpse found in the street or those who died violently. They also received bodies of suicide victims, unclaimed children and deceased babies. Now, you'd think that with the promised criminal supply and allowing bodies to be claimed off the street, that medical institutions would have more than enough cadavers to practice on. But this was far from the case. Many medical institutions actually struggled to obtain bodies due to angry crowds. This was especially true at executions, as the majority of the bodies being supplied to medical institutions were, at the time, executed criminals. Witnesses of executions were able to try and keep the bodies of executed felons away from authorities. This was usually due to a distrust of the government and for religious reasons. Because of the anger of the crowds, it was common for authorities not to push back, resulting in the anatomists not not getting the body and for it to be returned instead to the family. The authorities weren't going to put up too much of a fight for the body of a dead felon. The demand for fresh corpses led to a blossoming of the body snatching industry. And by 1720, body snatching was a common operation in both Edinburgh and London. Cadavers and body parts suddenly became commodities. The market was competitive with anatomy schools, individual surgeons and artists all wanting cadavers. Many body snatchers made a lot of money. The body snatchers were called a variety of things during this period. However, resurrection men, or resurrectionists, was the most common name. And this was because the men resurrected the dead from the graves. Resurrectionists snuck into the graveyards at night, where they found fresh graves and dug them up, opening the coffins to unearth the corpses. The corpses were stripped bare to avoid theft charges, as grave robbing was punished more harshly than body snatching. The illicit trade in human remains relied on a sophisticated underground conspiracy. Resurrection men typically operated in organized gangs, utilizing extensive networks to facilitate their activities. These criminals Often bribed gravediggers and church officials to obtain information on recent burials or to ensure that they would ignore their nighttime activities in the cemeteries. Furthermore, medical institutions were not merely passive recipients. They were fully cognizant of these methods and actively encouraged the practice. To maintain their supply of cadavers, Resurrection men often targeted pauper burial grounds to minimize legal risks. These locations, which served as final resting places for unclaimed bodies or those who couldn't afford individual plots, were particularly efficient for looters. Because a single pauper grave could contain as many as 12 bodies. The process was meticulous because working in silence was key. Taking a body could be done in an hour, and skilled teams could get up to six bodies in an evening. No corpse was safe. Since bodies of all ages and sexes were wanted, the corpses were taken to different areas and distributed to medical facilities, Private schools, or exported to towns that needed cadavers. It was normal to see a resurrection man in dissection rooms, Selling bodies, Negotiating deals, or taking orders. While every cadaver was sought after. Prices for bodies were typically determined by their size. A resurrectionist could earn as much as 16 guineas for a single corpse, a sum representing three to four months of typical wages for a working class person. Even after accounting for the costs of bribes and the distribution of proceeds amongst gang members, the gangs remained highly profitable. Body snatching, already prevalent in the 18th century, bloomed in the 19th. This is because the British judicial system was reformed, Reducing the frequency of executions. This created a massive imbalance between the supply and demand for cadavers. By the early 19th century, grave robbing had become far more organized. Prestigious institutions like St. Thomas Hospital regularly employed gangs to get cadavers. As body snatching became commonplace in Britain, Friends and family of the newly deceased would guard the body until it was buried. Many stayed overnight to prevent the grave from being dug up. It also became common for heavy duty iron cages, called mortsafes, to be caged around the grave site to keep the remains locked inside. The mort safes were left over the grave site for about a month, waiting for the corpse to decompose enough so that it no longer had financial value. As public concern grew around body snatching, One case in particular drew widespread attention to the practice. In 1828, William Burke and William Hare were friends who ran a boarding house in Edinburgh. They fell into body snatching by chance when a lodger named Old Donald died of natural causes. Donald had died owing them money, so they sold his body to cover his debt. They buried a coffin filled with tree bark. And took Donald's body to a private medical school in Edinburgh run by Professor Robert Knox. They were paid more than double what Donald owed them. Burke and Hare, seeing opportunity, entered the cadaver business. However, they bypassed grave robbing by supplying their own victims. Using their boarding house as cover. They invited people in and gave them lots of alcohol to weaken them. Once the victim could not fight back, they smothered them and sold the body in Surgeon Square, often to Professor Knox. Burke and hare killed for 10 months and were thought to have murdered 16 people. They were finally caught when their last victim's body was recognized during Professor Knox's class. Burke and Hare were caught and arrested. Hare turned on Burke, causing the latter to be executed for his crimes. And in the ultimate ironic twist, Burke's body was then given to anatomists who dissected it. The duo's crimes inspired other gangs to skip the grave robbing and turn to murder. The most notable example of this was the London Burkers, who were eventually arrested for having a suspiciously fresh corpse. The public was horrified by these crimes and demanded swift justice be taken against the criminals. The public outcry led the government to pay more attention to the body snatching problem. The British government first began discussing how to handle the body snatching crisis in 1828. Parliament formed the 1828 Select Committee on Anatomy which took input from medical professionals, eyewitnesses, public servants and three resurrection men on the issue. Through the hearing, Parliament agreed that the study of anatomy is important and gained a stronger understanding of the demand for cadavers and the relationship resurrectionists and anatomists. After the hearing, the group recommended that anatomists be given access to paupers bodies or poor unclaimed identified bodies as dissection was critical to the field. The first bill to give anatomists access to deceased paupers was presented to Parliament by Henry Warburton in 1829, but was quickly rejected by the House of Lords leading to its withdrawal. The bill was reintroduced to Parliament by Warburton two years later after the arrest and execution of the London Burkers. This time there was more public support behind the bill as they were fearful that more resurrection men would turn to murder for their body supply. There was still significant public outcry about the bill, but Warburton was able to speed it through Parliament and secure passage of the 1832 Anatomy Act. The act did a few things including abolishing the Murder act of 1752 and allowing for bodies to be taken for anatomy so long as the person had not objected. The 1832 Anatomy act was the nail in the coffin of body snatching. Resurrection men continued to operate for a short time thereafter, but the demand for bodies continued to decline until it was almost obsolete in the next decade. Body snatching remained a gray legal spot until 1857, when the burial act was passed. This law made it illegal to unearth human remains without having a license, regulated the burial practice, and ensured the security of burial grounds. The story of the resurrectionists sits at the uneasy intersection of progress and morality. In their wake came better medical knowledge, better trained surgeons, and eventually reforms that created legal and ethical ways to study the human body. Yet their trade often revealed how fear and poverty can be exploited when society fails to meet the demands of change. Today, their world of midnight graveyards and stolen corpses feels distant, but the larger question remains timeless. Just how far will people go in the pursuit of of knowledge? The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kieffer. Research and writing for this episode was provided by Olivia Ashe. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. 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