Body Bandits

Don’t tell me… you went out last night to celebrate Halloween, decked out in some silly costume, you drank too much, made a fool of yourself, and this morning, you’re nursing a haunting hangover. Am I right?

Well, for those of you who misbehaved last night, I’ll speak softly. For my responsible readers who dragged their kids from house to house and turned in early with a bellyful of candy, I’ll squeeze the last bit of life out of the Halloween season by discussing a curious piece of ghoulish history.

In keeping with last month’s scary theme, we tackled sex with the dead (Dead and Lovin’ It), the essence of smell (Something Smells…), and the investigation of blood (A Bloody History). To tie it all together, let’s discuss a topic that involves each of these subjects: digging up the dead.

You don’t hear much about grave robbing these days. It seems to have faded from culture, kind of like the outhouse and Lance Armstrong. Today’s modern grave robbers are typically called “looters” – those cretins who pillage archaeological sites for artifacts and bones. I can speak for all archaeologists when I say these criminals should be pummeled.

So instead of focusing on contemporary looters, let’s have some fun and go back in time… Let’s visit 19^th century England and explore the lurid history of the body snatchers.

The grave-robbing industry was born of necessity. As medicine evolved from hocus-pocus to actual science, medical students needed cadavers on which to explore the inner workings of the body. As a former medic, I can assure you no textbook comes close to providing the up-close-and-personal experience of investigating a corpse. Autopsies were part of our paramedic curriculum (see April’s Musings on an Autopsy). And nothing beats the real thing.

But if you were an English medical student in the 1800s, there were few textbooks available. Dissection was in its infancy in this region of the world and cadavers were in short supply.

The legal system tried to remedy the problem. In 1751, they passed “The Act for Better Preventing the Horrid Crime of Murder” (even English laws sound fancy), which proclaimed that anyone convicted of murder would be executed. The murderer' corpse would then be turned over to the medical students for dissection. The law served two purposes: it deterred crime (since no one wanted to end up on the dissecting slab), while also providing fresh meat for the students.

The problem was there simply weren’t enough murderers to go around. In fact, in 1831, there were over nine hundred med students in England champing at the bit for a corpse, but only eleven convicted killers. To make matters worse, few women were put to death. Between 1800 and 1832, only seven females were executed. This meant most docs graduated from medical school having never worked on a female body (unless they were lucky enough to have an accommodating spouse or sister). When the rare female was put to death, the dissection turned into a morbid free-for-all. The body was typically cut into pieces as desperate students inspected every square inch of her anatomy. Special attention was paid to the lady-bits, since unmarried students (especially the less attractive ones) rarely had the opportunity to explore a woman’s nether regions.

Enter the resurrectionists. These entrepreneurs were well-versed in supply-side economics. If the med schools needed bodies, they knew just where to find them. Thus, the era of grave robbing was born.

The bandits would sneak into graveyards at night, target fresh graves, and hastily disinter the bodies. The more ambitious agents even posted scouts, who stood lookout for funeral processions. The public quickly caught on, devising elaborate tombs to protect their dearly departed. Fences, locked vaults, and mortar slabs were just a few of the deterrents put in place to try to keep the resurrectionists out. Friends and families even kept vigil for the first few days, to insure decomposition could set in, since putrid bodies were less desirable.

With grave robbing on the rise, the government intervened once again in an attempt to provide cadavers. In 1832, The Anatomy Act was passed, which not only relegated executed criminals to the dissecting table, but also included unclaimed bodies from area hospitals. These were typically the poor or destitute who died in obscurity. As for other patients, family members quickly learned to stand guard over their loved ones. If a body wasn’t claimed within forty-eight hours, it was handed over to the med schools. The schools even went as far as posting “clerks,” who would roam the hospital corridors, waiting and watching for a fresh corpse.

But the most famous body snatchers heralded from further north, in Edinburgh, Scotland. William Burke and William Hare went into business together, robbing graves by night and selling the bodies to anatomist Robert Knox by day. But grave robbing was hard work. They soon realized killing was easier than digging, so they abandoned their nightly excavations and turned to murder. 

Their preferred method was suffocation, since it made for a tidier corpse, and they typically targeted prostitutes, since the disappearance of a hooker was unlikely to arouse suspicion. The killing spree, which became known as the “West Port Murders,” tallied sixteen victims before the Williams were finally caught. Their “Burking” days were over and in an ironic twist of fate, Hare turned snitch and testified against Burke, who was found guilty, put to death, and subsequently dissected. Ah, sweet justice!

So with this brief history of body snatching, our Halloween season draws to a close. Fall marches on and before we know it, we’ll be celebrating every pilgrim’s favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. The trick will be to devise a way to incorporate turkey anatomy into the blog. Stay tuned!

Have a great week and thanks for reading. See you next Friday.

A great read on the subject!