Prompt Cast
The Dark History of Grave Robbing and Body Snatching
TLDR Grave robbing and body snatching reached its peak in the late 18th and early 19th century, driven by the demand for bodies for medical schools. Organized criminal gangs engaged in various tactics to steal bodies, leading to the emergence of a black market for stolen corpses.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
Grave robbing was at its peak in the late 18th and early 19th century, making it the "golden age" of grave robbing.
06:33
In the mid-16th century, early medicine was practiced by barbers, surgeons, apothecaries, and witches, who believed that the human body ran on the four humors and that the kidneys made pee, until someone decided to double check their work and realized they needed to cut open more bodies to advance medicine.
12:43
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the need for bodies for medical schools led to the emergence of a black market for stolen corpses, which was fueled by organized criminal gangs and a loophole in English law that made it technically legal to steal bodies as long as the valuables were returned.
18:27
The Burra gang, led by Ben Crouch and later Patrick Murphy, engaged in various underhanded tactics to steal bodies, including selling a body to a hospital and then stealing it back before it could be dissected, mutilating bodies to make them unusable, and delivering a live person instead of a corpse to an anatomist.
24:34
Grave robbers would often steal bodies by pretending to be family members and taking the body right away from the actual family, or by digging up bodies from unpatrolled hospital graveyards and selling them to other hospitals within 24 hours.
31:21
Grave robbers would often steal bodies by pretending to be family members and taking the body right away from the actual family, or by digging up bodies from unpatrolled hospital graveyards and selling them to other hospitals within 24 hours.
37:32
During the Georgian period in the United States, there were numerous anatomy riots and grave robberies, leading people to come up with inventive ways to protect their loved ones' graves, such as staggering sticks and using mort stones or mort houses.
43:34
During the Georgian period in the United States, there were numerous anatomy riots and grave robberies, leading people to come up with inventive ways to protect their loved ones' graves, such as staggering sticks and using mort stones or mort houses.
49:03
Burke and Hare, notorious grave robbers, would murder people and sell their bodies for dissection, a process that became known as "Birking."
55:02
Burke and Hare accused Herr and Margaret of killing people without including them, leading to Burke and Helen opening their own boarding house for murder and fun, but they were eventually caught and Burke was hanged, while Hare was blinded and moved to London.
01:01:40
The Anatomy Act of 1832 was passed in response to the public outcry over the illegal trade of cadavers, providing a legal means for anatomists to obtain bodies for dissection and challenging the social stigma surrounding dissection.
01:07:00
Between 1832 and 1932, over 57,000 cadavers were donated to medical science in the UK, leading to the acceptance of dissection by the public, and even today, the US outsources grave robbing for articulated skeletons to India.
01:13:06
Grave robbers in 2004 stole the body of Gladys Hammond and held it for ransom in order to stop her family from breeding guinea pigs for medical research, and although the family agreed to stop, the body was never returned.
Categories:
Society & Culture
