130 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



teen hundred to 2,000 were removed from it annually. Many 

 were shipped out of the country at fabulous prices after the market 

 had been cornered by a body snatcher named Wilson Rae, a 

 Scotchman by birth. So expanded and profitable did this business 

 become that it jeopardized the supply to the anatomical schools 

 in Dublin, partly by raising the cost of cadavers beyond the fi 

 nancial means of the anatomists. The medical profession of the 

 city officially protested against the exportation of subjects but 

 not against the act of grave robbing. 



The factors which made exportation of bodies from Dublin 

 possible were the following: the introduction of steam naviga- 

 tion into the Irish channel, the augmentation of the number of 

 medical students throughout the Isles, the scarcity and expense 

 of bodies in England and Scotland and finally the abundance and 

 comparative cheapness of them in Ireland. 



Wilson Rae had been a half-pay surgeon, in the employ ol 

 His Majesty. His method was to bribe all parties concerned witli 

 commerce in human subjects, when necessary. He also purchased 

 some from the porters of the anatomical schools, who became 

 traitors to the cause, because they were paid weekly throughout 

 the year to do all they could in keeping their institutions ade- 

 quately supplied. It was necessary for Rae to enlist the aid of the 

 resurrectionists, which he was able to do; he personally acconi 

 panied them on their forages to the cemeteries. All sense of de- 

 cency was abolished; the graves, after being ransacked, were lelt 

 open and bodies were transported from isolated depots, even at 

 midday. The captain of the ship used in the transportation was 

 also cut in for a share of the profits. Both Rae and his wife, were 

 eventually arrested when they were caught shipping corpses in 

 piano cases (Erinensis, 1829; Guttmacher, '35). 



James Macartney, who had accepted the chair of anatomy ai 

 the University of Dublin in 1813 was exposed to mob action in 

 1826, when the body of a well-known person was brought into his 

 laboratory by a group of resurrectionists; the anatomist ininie 

 diately buried the specimen, otherwise the ired people would 

 have torn down the place. On another occasion, three Ixxlv 

 snatchers stole the corpse of a lady from the altar of a convent 

 church and brought it to Macartney; when he learned the circuni 



