July 9, 2024 • 9 mins
They say knowledge is power. But is it more important than ethics…or law? Over the centuries, researchers' quest to understand what’s under our skin, the human anatomy, has motivated scientists—as well as money-hungry grave robbers—to become body snatchers. But more than that, it sometimes inspired murder.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, think about the challenges of understanding the human
body and medicine. After spiritual mystery took a back seat
and science became the thing, there were no X rays
or MRIs, not even photos. So the only way to
figure out how the human body worked and how to
fix what wasn't working was to take a look under
the hood by carving up a dead body. The demand
(00:22):
for bodies was huge for centuries, and grave robbers or
body snatchers made a bundle by digging up fresh graves.
But there was another way. I'm Patty Steele. Medical research
partners with murder. That's next on the backstory. The backstory
(00:43):
is back. For as long as human beings have been
aware of life, we have been aware of death for
thousands of years. There's been a fascination with doing pretty
much everything possible to delay the inevitable. Thousands of years ago,
in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, researchers start looking inside the
human body to see how it functioned. Frequently, early anatomists
(01:06):
settled for dissecting animals, and they did learn a lot
from the study of pigs, apes, cattle and other types,
but they needed to work with humans. Problem was it
wasn't easy to find bodies to take apart, since most
folks felt you were desecrating God's work to slice open
a human and dismantle it. Primarily they had access to
(01:26):
executed criminals, but they needed more. By the time we
got to the Middle Ages, the obsession with how we
worked had only grown. In fact, Leonardo da Vinci left
behind more than seven hundred and fifty drawings from his
study of anatomy after he personally dissected about thirty human bodies,
and he actually produced the first really accurate drawing of
(01:49):
a human spine, but eventually the Pope forced him to stop. Now,
the Church tried to put a stop to all the
fun of anatomy classes by trying to ban human death dissection,
but no such luck. The medical community continued the quest
and moving forward, a lot of other famous artists, from
Michelangelo to Rembrandt, also studied anatomy, taking part in or
(02:13):
at least sitting in on dissections and publishing drawings for money.
As the centuries rolled on, the desire to understand the
human body from a scientific perspective increased, and that meant
more medical schools and more students and the need for
more bodies, so all of that basically supported the growing
(02:33):
side hustle for folks who didn't mind grave robbing, They
would keep an eye on cemeteries and sneak in after
burials to help themselves to fresh bodies, which they then
quickly sell to medical schools and other researchers. It was
incredibly lucrative. Cadavers gave the robbers pretty much the equivalent
of three months of a working man's wages for just
(02:56):
one body, a tremendous financial incentive for the bodies snatchers
willing to dig in. These guys were more politely called resurrectionists. Okay, sure,
marketing is everything, right. Of course, folks were desperate to
protect their recently deceased loved ones from the anatomist stable,
since they believed the dead couldn't rise up to heaven
(03:17):
if their body wasn't intact. Cases of grave robbing actually
caused riots, damage to property, and even violent attacks. People
often used a thing called a mortsafe or mort cage,
ultra heavy iron bars shaped into a cage that surrounded
a grave with a huge stone on top, making it
tougher to get to the body. The rich could afford
(03:40):
to buy heavy table tombstones, vaults, mausoleums, and mort cages.
But short of that, you could rent them short term,
or even have friends and relatives simply take turns or
hire men to watch graves throughout each night. That would
last for about six weeks until the buried body had
decayed ate enough that they were no longer of medical use.
(04:03):
A lot of graveyards actually built what were called watch
towers for all the watchers to sit in while they
were on duty during the night. Now meantime, the government,
anxious for research, had sort of ignored grave robbing, but
they also wanted to legally help meet the need for
fresh cadavers and reduce crime. By the end of the
(04:23):
eighteenth century, a lot of countries passed legislation allowing doctors
and med schools to dissect the unclaimed bodies of poor people,
prison inmates, orphans, and suicide victims, as well as folks
in psychiatric and charity hospitals, and some even allowed the
use of female bodies, which had been previously a no go.
(04:44):
I guess they didn't feel they needed to understand the
female body. But when all else failed and the body
snatchers needed caches much as researchers needed bodies. Some nefarious
types turned from dead bodies snatching to live bodies snatching.
It was called an anatomy murder or in England Burking
why burking Well. In eighteen twenty eight, William Burke and
(05:08):
William Hare began to take advantage of this overwhelming need
for fresh flesh, and they started selling the bodies of
people they'd murdered. It began when a tenant in a
building Hare owned died of natural causes while still owing
him rent. He turned to his friend Burke, complaining of
the lost rent money. That's when they decided to quickly
(05:30):
snag the body and sell it to doctor Robert Knox,
a well known anatomist. He gave them what amounted to
six months of wages for an unskilled worker. Wow, here's
an untapped opportunity, they thought. But wait a minute, what
if none of our other tenants die of natural causes? Hmmm.
A few months later, when Hare was worried another lodger
(05:52):
who had a fever would scare healthy renters away, he
and Burke murdered him and sold his body to doctor Knox.
Ah Ah, here's the answer. They came up with a
plan soon they began to lure people into their lodgings.
They'd get them drunk and murder them, usually by suffocation,
then they'd sell the bodies. Inspired by the easy cash,
(06:14):
they continued their murder spree, and there's evidence their wives
were in on it too. Their fatal mistake. All of
the bodies went to pretty much the same doctor, doctor Knox,
who was oddly unconcerned about where all those fresh corpses
were coming from and never asked them. He did tell
them how delighted he was when they were able to
(06:35):
deliver bodies that were still warm. Yeesh. Doctor Knox's advertising
for med students promised they could observe him dissecting fresh
anatomical subjects twice a day. Wow. But the unraveling started
when it turned out that one of the victims doctor
Knox dissected was actually a well known street person in town.
(06:57):
Suspicions began to rise. Their actions were uncovered after other
lodgers in Hare's house saw the last victim before they
got rid of the body and contacted the cops. Over
the course of just ten months, Burke and Hare had
murdered about sixteen people. Once they were finally caught. It
was every man for himself. It wasn't an easy prosecution
(07:21):
because there's only the one final body. But the autopsy
unheard didn't prove she was actually murdered, so prosecutors had
to cut a deal and Hare managed to get immunity
from prosecution by spilling the beans on Burke. The trial
began on Christmas Eve in eighteen twenty eight. Thousands of
people converged early in the morning on the courthouse in Edinburgh, Scotland,
(07:45):
with three hundred constables to keep the peace, as well
as infantry and cavalry on standby. The trial lasted throughout
the day and throughout the night, until nine thirty Christmas morning,
when William Burke alone was found guilty. The judge, David
Boyle said, your body will be publicly dissected and anatomized,
(08:07):
and I trust that if it is ever customary to
preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved in order that posterity
may keep in remembrance your atrocious crimes. Burke was hanged
in keeping with the judge's wish for poetic justice. He
was publicly dissected, hair eventually just disappeared, and while only
(08:29):
William Burke had to face justice. This rhyme was popular
on the streets for a while. Burke's the butcher, Hare's
the thief, doctor knocks the boy that buys the beef.
Hope you like the Backstory with Patty Steele. I would
(08:51):
love it if you'd subscribe or follow for free to
get new episodes delivered automatically, and feel free to dm
me if you have a story you'd like me to
dig into and cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and
on Instagram Reel Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories
a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Duran Group,
(09:13):
and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our
writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and
on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the
Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't
(09:35):
know you needed to know
All right, think about the challenges of understanding the human
body and medicine. After spiritual mystery took a back seat
and science became the thing, there were no X rays
or MRIs, not even photos. So the only way to
figure out how the human body worked and how to
fix what wasn't working was to take a look under
the hood by carving up a dead body. The demand
(00:22):
for bodies was huge for centuries, and grave robbers or
body snatchers made a bundle by digging up fresh graves.
But there was another way. I'm Patty Steele. Medical research
partners with murder. That's next on the backstory. The backstory
(00:43):
is back. For as long as human beings have been
aware of life, we have been aware of death for
thousands of years. There's been a fascination with doing pretty
much everything possible to delay the inevitable. Thousands of years ago,
in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, researchers start looking inside the
human body to see how it functioned. Frequently, early anatomists
(01:06):
settled for dissecting animals, and they did learn a lot
from the study of pigs, apes, cattle and other types,
but they needed to work with humans. Problem was it
wasn't easy to find bodies to take apart, since most
folks felt you were desecrating God's work to slice open
a human and dismantle it. Primarily they had access to
(01:26):
executed criminals, but they needed more. By the time we
got to the Middle Ages, the obsession with how we
worked had only grown. In fact, Leonardo da Vinci left
behind more than seven hundred and fifty drawings from his
study of anatomy after he personally dissected about thirty human bodies,
and he actually produced the first really accurate drawing of
(01:49):
a human spine, but eventually the Pope forced him to stop. Now,
the Church tried to put a stop to all the
fun of anatomy classes by trying to ban human death dissection,
but no such luck. The medical community continued the quest
and moving forward, a lot of other famous artists, from
Michelangelo to Rembrandt, also studied anatomy, taking part in or
(02:13):
at least sitting in on dissections and publishing drawings for money.
As the centuries rolled on, the desire to understand the
human body from a scientific perspective increased, and that meant
more medical schools and more students and the need for
more bodies, so all of that basically supported the growing
(02:33):
side hustle for folks who didn't mind grave robbing, They
would keep an eye on cemeteries and sneak in after
burials to help themselves to fresh bodies, which they then
quickly sell to medical schools and other researchers. It was
incredibly lucrative. Cadavers gave the robbers pretty much the equivalent
of three months of a working man's wages for just
(02:56):
one body, a tremendous financial incentive for the bodies snatchers
willing to dig in. These guys were more politely called resurrectionists. Okay, sure,
marketing is everything, right. Of course, folks were desperate to
protect their recently deceased loved ones from the anatomist stable,
since they believed the dead couldn't rise up to heaven
(03:17):
if their body wasn't intact. Cases of grave robbing actually
caused riots, damage to property, and even violent attacks. People
often used a thing called a mortsafe or mort cage,
ultra heavy iron bars shaped into a cage that surrounded
a grave with a huge stone on top, making it
tougher to get to the body. The rich could afford
(03:40):
to buy heavy table tombstones, vaults, mausoleums, and mort cages.
But short of that, you could rent them short term,
or even have friends and relatives simply take turns or
hire men to watch graves throughout each night. That would
last for about six weeks until the buried body had
decayed ate enough that they were no longer of medical use.
(04:03):
A lot of graveyards actually built what were called watch
towers for all the watchers to sit in while they
were on duty during the night. Now meantime, the government,
anxious for research, had sort of ignored grave robbing, but
they also wanted to legally help meet the need for
fresh cadavers and reduce crime. By the end of the
(04:23):
eighteenth century, a lot of countries passed legislation allowing doctors
and med schools to dissect the unclaimed bodies of poor people,
prison inmates, orphans, and suicide victims, as well as folks
in psychiatric and charity hospitals, and some even allowed the
use of female bodies, which had been previously a no go.
(04:44):
I guess they didn't feel they needed to understand the
female body. But when all else failed and the body
snatchers needed caches much as researchers needed bodies. Some nefarious
types turned from dead bodies snatching to live bodies snatching.
It was called an anatomy murder or in England Burking
why burking Well. In eighteen twenty eight, William Burke and
(05:08):
William Hare began to take advantage of this overwhelming need
for fresh flesh, and they started selling the bodies of
people they'd murdered. It began when a tenant in a
building Hare owned died of natural causes while still owing
him rent. He turned to his friend Burke, complaining of
the lost rent money. That's when they decided to quickly
(05:30):
snag the body and sell it to doctor Robert Knox,
a well known anatomist. He gave them what amounted to
six months of wages for an unskilled worker. Wow, here's
an untapped opportunity, they thought. But wait a minute, what
if none of our other tenants die of natural causes? Hmmm.
A few months later, when Hare was worried another lodger
(05:52):
who had a fever would scare healthy renters away, he
and Burke murdered him and sold his body to doctor Knox.
Ah Ah, here's the answer. They came up with a
plan soon they began to lure people into their lodgings.
They'd get them drunk and murder them, usually by suffocation,
then they'd sell the bodies. Inspired by the easy cash,
(06:14):
they continued their murder spree, and there's evidence their wives
were in on it too. Their fatal mistake. All of
the bodies went to pretty much the same doctor, doctor Knox,
who was oddly unconcerned about where all those fresh corpses
were coming from and never asked them. He did tell
them how delighted he was when they were able to
(06:35):
deliver bodies that were still warm. Yeesh. Doctor Knox's advertising
for med students promised they could observe him dissecting fresh
anatomical subjects twice a day. Wow. But the unraveling started
when it turned out that one of the victims doctor
Knox dissected was actually a well known street person in town.
(06:57):
Suspicions began to rise. Their actions were uncovered after other
lodgers in Hare's house saw the last victim before they
got rid of the body and contacted the cops. Over
the course of just ten months, Burke and Hare had
murdered about sixteen people. Once they were finally caught. It
was every man for himself. It wasn't an easy prosecution
(07:21):
because there's only the one final body. But the autopsy
unheard didn't prove she was actually murdered, so prosecutors had
to cut a deal and Hare managed to get immunity
from prosecution by spilling the beans on Burke. The trial
began on Christmas Eve in eighteen twenty eight. Thousands of
people converged early in the morning on the courthouse in Edinburgh, Scotland,
(07:45):
with three hundred constables to keep the peace, as well
as infantry and cavalry on standby. The trial lasted throughout
the day and throughout the night, until nine thirty Christmas morning,
when William Burke alone was found guilty. The judge, David
Boyle said, your body will be publicly dissected and anatomized,
(08:07):
and I trust that if it is ever customary to
preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved in order that posterity
may keep in remembrance your atrocious crimes. Burke was hanged
in keeping with the judge's wish for poetic justice. He
was publicly dissected, hair eventually just disappeared, and while only
(08:29):
William Burke had to face justice. This rhyme was popular
on the streets for a while. Burke's the butcher, Hare's
the thief, doctor knocks the boy that buys the beef.
Hope you like the Backstory with Patty Steele. I would
(08:51):
love it if you'd subscribe or follow for free to
get new episodes delivered automatically, and feel free to dm
me if you have a story you'd like me to
dig into and cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and
on Instagram Reel Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories
a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Duran Group,
(09:13):
and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our
writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and
on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the
Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't
(09:35):
know you needed to know
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