186 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



border was only about a mile from Dartmouth College, that state 

 felt it necessary to take precautions against resurrection, by agents 

 representing the school, so the assembly enacted a statute with 

 penalties similar to those in New Hampshire. 



In 1804, Vermont went further and enacted a new code. 

 Body snatching was made a felony and indictment and trial were 

 in the hands of the higher county courts. The clerk of each 

 tribunal was required to report all data to the state attorney gen- 

 eral. For a period of two decades, between 1820 and 1840, there 

 were only seven indictments for "disinterring the body of the 

 dead." Only two were convicted and punished (Waite, '45b). 



By the year 1820, six New England states had laws against 

 grave robbing. Collectively, the early ones had certain common 

 penalties: fines, incarceration and public whipping, but the last 

 was abolished in all codes revised after 1810. Variations in the 

 types of punishment included fines from $100 to $10,000 and 

 terms of maximal imprisonment from three months up to fifteen 

 years. As the number of medical colleges increased, adding to 

 student enrollment, the penalties became more severe. This was 

 the method the legislators used rather than trying to provide a 

 more adequate legal supply. In the earliest statutes, it was just 

 as serious a crime to transport, conceal or possess a body removed 

 from the grave as was disinterment. Possession was defined as 

 being the presence of a body on the premises owned or controlled 

 by the person accused. 



In spite of various enactments, the great majority of illegal 

 transactions were never discovered; if they were, the offenders 

 were rarely apprehended, indicted or convicted. 



The same preventive measures against resurrection were 

 used here as in Great Britain: filling the graves with bundles of 

 straw, sticks or large stones to make excavations difficult. This 

 procedure delayed but did not prevent grave robbing. Thick 

 planks were also placed across the coffins for the same reason 

 which made it necessary to remove the soil from the entire grave, 

 something rarely done. Such methods as the use of iron coffins 

 or mortsafes were not utilized in New England or anywhere else 

 in the United States, but public vaults constructed of heavy stone 

 and iron doors were adopted. Grave watching was generally un- 



