CHRONOLOGICAL HIGHLIGHTS ON HUMAN DISSECTION 265 



This situation led to the rise of a group of low-class pro- 

 fessional resurrectionists who took over the duty of supplying 

 cadavers to the needy medical schools: they replaced surgeons, 

 students and teachers in this endeavor; made up of rowdies, 

 criminals, gravediggers and sextons whose sole aim was monetary, 

 it did not take them long to commercialize the practice. They 

 operated in the form of unlicensed and unwanted guilds. The 

 peak of this movement was between 1800 and 1832 before the 

 passage of the British Anatomy Act in 1832. It was possible for a 

 clever gang of four or five to unearth as many as 400 bodies 

 annually and rapidly dispose of them to the anatomical schools 

 at a total price close to $8,000, considerable money in those days. 



Many tales have been told about individual resurrectionists 

 but certain persons who were not strictly grave robbers supplied 

 the main drama in the early 1800's. Two of these, were the no; 

 torious pair of Burke and Hare. With the assistance of two fe- 

 male accomplices, they were able to complete sixteen murders, 

 during an interval of eight and one-half months in Edinburgh, 

 before they were apprehended. The victims were made up of 

 widows, orphans, streetwalkers and imbeciles. After being ap- 

 prehended and indicted, Burke was sentenced to be hung, his 

 body exhibited in chains and publicly dissected. His hanging was 

 witnessed by about 25,000 people on January 28, 1829. 



An unusual feature of the murders, was that all of the slain 

 bodies reached the private anatomical laboratories of Dr. Robert 

 Knox, one of the outstanding anatomists of his time, who thus 

 became a central figure in the events. He was condemned pretty 

 much on all sides, even among members of his own profession. 

 Violent opinions were expressed through the existing means of 

 communication and he was never able to overcome the reactions. 

 It led gradually to his professional downfall. 



Even this series of crimes, was insufficient to agitate the 

 British legislators into final action in respect to the passage of a 

 workable anatomy act. It required another incident, this time in 

 London, to set the wheels effectively in motion. A young fourteen 

 year-old boy was murdered in London on November 5, 1831, 

 by two men. Bishop and May, and an accomplice, Williams. It 

 was discovered and Bishop and Williams were sentenced and hung 



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