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Frankenstein: Body Snatching

PB Shelley

Web Resources

Burke and Hare
From Grave Robbing to Gifting: Cadaver Supply in the United States
Aaron D. Tward, MA, Hugh A. Patterson, PhD, 2002; 287(9):1183. doi: 10.1001/jama.287.9.1183
Grave Offense: Emily Bazelon on 19th-Century Medicine's Midnight Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Emily Bazelon, Legal Affairs
The Discovery Channel: Rory McGrath's Bloody Britain, Body Snatcher
William Burke & William Hare, 'The Resurrectionists'
In Need of Cadavers, 19th-Century Medical Students Raided Baltimore’s Graves
With a half-dozen medical schools and a shortage of bodies, grave robbing thrived—and with no consequences for the culprits

PDF Files

Body Snatchers

'Resurrectionists' stealing a corpse from a cemetery to be sold for anatomical study and dissection, circa 1840.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images