The Resurrectionists: Grave Robbers Who Built Modern Medicine

Podcast Transcript

In the early days of modern medicine, some of the most important scientific breakthroughs depended on a deeply disturbing underground trade.

Under the cover of darkness, gangs known as Resurrectionists robbed fresh graves and sold bodies to anatomy schools hungry for cadavers.

Their work helped train doctors and advance 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 this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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 is under our skin is to dissect cadavers. I suppose you could do it to living people, but I think the problem with that is pretty obvious

While it might 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.

The reason why it took so long to learn about anatomy had to do with religious and cultural taboos. Many religions view the dissection of corpses as desecration or as disrespectful to the person. This led to bans by religious institutions, such as the Catholic Church, that lasted for centuries.

This restriction limited doctors’ understanding 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 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 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 1506. That year, the Scottish King, James IV, gave permission for Barber-Surgeons in Edinburgh to dissect criminals.

England followed in 1540, when King Henry VIII let Barber-Surgeons receive four executed criminals’ corpses each year. In 1564, Elizabeth I granted the College of Physicians the same right. 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 bodies, the British Government passed the Murder Act of 1752. This act required murderers, after execution, to be dissected or hanged by chains.

This law was meant to deter people from committing murder as many people viewed dissection as a fate worse than death. It also aimed to reduce body snatching by providing more cadavers to institutions.

This new law benefited surgeons, and the cadaver supply increased. However, it was still not 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 corpses found on the street or those who died violently. They also received bodies of suicide victims, unclaimed children, and deceased babies.

Now, you would think that with the promised criminal supply and allowing bodies to be claimed on the street, the 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 execution sites.

As the majority of the bodies being supplied to medical institutions were, at this time, executed criminals, witnesses of the execution were able to try and keep the bodies of executed felons away from the authorities. This was often due to 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 getting the body and for it to be returned instead to their 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 became commodities. The market was competitive, with anatomy schools, individual surgeons, and artists all wanting bodies. Many bodysnatchers made a lot of money.

Body snatchers were called a variety of things during the time; however, “Resurrection Men” or “Resurrectionists” was the most common name. This was because the men “resurrected” the dead from their graves.

Resurrectionists snuck into graveyards at night. They found fresh graves and dug them up, opening the coffins to unearth 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 grave diggers and church officials to obtain information on recent burials or to ensure they would ignore the 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 could not 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 a night. 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. Even after accounting for the costs of bribes and the distribution of proceeds among members, the gangs remained highly profitable.

Body snatching, already prevalent in the 18th century, boomed 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 gravesite to keep the remains locked inside. The mortsafes were left over the gravesite 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 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, Old Donald, died of natural causes. Donald had died owing them money, so they sold his body to cover the 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.

Burke and Hare, seeing opportunity, entered the cadavar 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’s Square, often to Professor Knox.

Burke and Hare killed for ten months and are thought to have murdered 16 people. They were 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 crime. In the ultimate ironic turn, 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, eye witnesses, 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 between resurrectionists and anatomists.

After the hearing, the group recommended that anatomists be given access to paupers’ bodies, or poor, unclaimed, unidentified bodies, as dissection was critical to the field.

The first bill to give anatomists access to 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 as 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 after the passage of the act, but the demand for bodies continued to decline until it was almost obsolete by the next decade.

Body snatching remained a gray spot legally 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 also 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: how far people will go in the pursuit of knowledge.