BODY SNATCHING

BODY SNATCHING. Around 1877 young Pete Schulte died after falling into a vat at Glab's distillery. He was buried in St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery near LINWOOD CEMETERY. In late November, 1877 his father, Peter, died. On December 16, 1877 after it was decided to rebury the boy near his father, it was found that the original grave was empty. Even the coffin missing. Suspicions fell on a young man who had passed through town on his way to Kansas. The only fact was that "body snatchers had done their work long before the mound became sunken from time and the blasts of the weather." (1) Incidents like this from around the United States were regularly reported in Dubuque newspapers.

Body snatching has been directly linked to the advancements in the study of anatomy and medicine. The term was coined to describe the act of secretly removing corpses from graves for sale, primarily to medical schools where they were used for dissection and anatomy lessons. The practice was condoned by many medical practitioners and institutions who believed it was a necessary evil, one that was offset by the benefits anatomical study of the bodies would produce. (2)

    Friday 3rd. Went to St. Thomas’s, took the Fœtus to 
    the London, Recd. 10s. 6d. Came back to St. Thomas’s 
    Recd. £4 4s. 0d., Went home, Met by agreement, Went 
    to the Green got 5, Jack, Benn and me; Danl. and Bill 
    at home, took the above 5 to Bartholw. at home all night.

       From the diary of a body snatcher, recording his wares 
       and the price he got from them at London hospitals (3)

The first known case of body snatching was committed by four medical students in Bologna in 1319. Several years earlier the famed professor at Bologna, Mundinus, had revived the study and teaching of anatomy. He conducted public dissections of bodies, usually those of condemned criminals. In the 17th and 18th centuries body snatching reached epic proportions around the world. There was a reduction in executions, the traditional source of cadavers, and a growth of medical schools and the study of anatomy. Poor refrigeration methods meant a lack of fresh bodies for medical study. The punishment for stealing bodies was minimal – the convicted were given a fine or imprisoned. (4)

A common practice was to burrow into the head end of the grave and drag the corpse out with a rope tied around its neck. A more subtle method was to dig a hole at a certain distance from the grave and tunnel the body out without anyone knowing the grave had been disturbed. The shroud and grave goods would often be left in the grave on removal of the body, as court sentences were lighter for body snatching alone. (5)

The increasing demand for fresh cadavers gave rise to “resurrectionists”, men paid to dig up and deliver bodies. Working in teams, the thieves targeted new graves because it was easier to dig up the unsettled earth. A particular target for resurrectionists were the mass graves of the poor. These graves were left uncovered until they were full of coffins. It became more common, especially in Europe, for the relatives of the deceased to watch over their graves. Many means of preventing the theft of the human remains were developed. (6)

In 1788 medical students at Columbia College in New York City had to supply their own research cadavers and often resorted to grave-robbing the city’s slave, free black, and impoverished graveyards. Medical students and doctors paid grave robbers to remove the bodies of loved ones within hours of their burial.

On April 16, 1788, the city broke out in a riot. Columbia College Alumnus Alexander Hamilton was forced to try to hold back a mob from the university’s front door. According to some accounts, both former New York Governor and First Supreme Court Justice John Jay and the Revolutionary war hero Baron Von Stueben were present. They were allegedly hit with a rock and a brick, respectively, as they tried to block the rioters.

The mob moved from room to room of the university dragging doctors out into the street, beating them, and destroying any stolen corpses they found inside. The mob continued to move across the city, chanting “bring out your doctors” until the governor ordered the militia to stop them by force. It is believed up to 20 people may have died as a result of this riot. (7)

Erik Larson used the case of H. H. Holmes as the basis of his popular book, The Devil in the White City, the true story of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and a cunning serial killer who operated at the same time. By carefully designing a huge house and firing workers frequently, no one had any idea of what was being built. Holmes constructed a house of horrors. Victims were lured to apartments on the upper floors, drugged, and then locked in sound-proofed rooms in the basementnever to be seen again. Holmes killed them, stripped the flesh from the bones, and sold the skeletons to medical students who asked no questions.

Sources of information in the twenty-first century sale of body parts can easily be found on the Internet.

Source:

1. "Body Snatching Around the World," History Detectives, Online: https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/body-snatching-around-the-world/

2. "The Rise of the Body Snatchers," Online: https://www.history.co.uk/history-of-death/the-rise-of-the-body-snatchers

3. Ibid.

4. "The Rise of the Body Snatchers," Online: https://www.history.co.uk/history-of-death/the-rise-of-the-body-snatchers

5. "Body Snatching..."

6. Ibid.

7. Lenoir, Andrew, "How A Criminal Underworld of Body-Snatching Robbers Galvanized Modern Medicine," https://allthatsinteresting.com/body-snatching