|
Body snatching is the secret disinterment of corpses from graveyards or other burial sites. A common purpose of body snatching, especially in the 19th century, was to sell the corpses for dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools. Those who practiced body snatching were often called "resurrectionists" or "resurrection-men". A related act is grave robbery, uncovering a tomb or crypt to steal artifacts or personal effects rather than corpses. ==United Kingdom== Before the Anatomy Act of 1832, the only legal supply of corpses for anatomical purposes in the UK were those condemned to death and dissection by the courts. Those who were sentenced to dissection by the courts were often guilty of comparatively harsher crimes. Such sentences did not provide enough subjects for the medical schools and private anatomical schools (which did not require a licence before 1832). During the 18th century hundreds had been executed for trivial crimes, but by the 19th century only about 55 people were being sentenced to capital punishment each year. With the expansion of the medical schools, however, as many as 500 cadavers were needed annually.〔(East London History ) accessed 24 January 2007〕 Interfering with a grave was a misdemeanour at common law, not a felony, and therefore only punishable with a fine and imprisonment rather than transportation or execution.〔The ''Rex.'' vs Lynn case 1728, made taking a body from a churchyard a misdemeanour〕 The trade was a sufficiently lucrative business to run the risk of detection,〔 particularly as the authorities tended to ignore what they considered a necessary evil.〔John Fleetwood, The Irish Body Snatchers, Tomar Publishing, Dublin, 1988. ISBN 1-871793-00-9 pp. 14–18〕 Body snatching became so prevalent that it was not unusual for relatives and friends of someone who had just died to watch over the body until burial, and then to keep watch over the grave ''after'' burial, to stop it being violated. Iron coffins, too, were used frequently, or the graves were protected by a framework of iron bars called ''mortsafes'', well-preserved examples of which may still be seen in Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh.〔 Mort houses, such as the circular Udny Mort House in Aberdeenshire built in 1832, were also used to store bodies until decomposition, rendering the cadavers useless for medical dissection. One method the body snatchers used was to dig at the head end of a recent burial, digging with a wooden spade (quieter than metal). When they reached the coffin (in London the graves were quite shallow), they broke open the coffin, put a rope around the corpse and dragged it out. They were often careful not to steal anything such as jewellery or clothes as this would cause them to be liable to a felony charge. ''The Lancet'' reported another method. A manhole-sized square of turf was removed away from the head of the grave, and a tunnel dug to intercept the coffin, which would be about down. The end of the coffin would be pulled off, and the corpse pulled up through the tunnel. The turf was then replaced, and any relatives watching the graves would not notice the small, remote disturbance. The article suggests that the number of empty coffins that have been discovered "proves beyond a doubt that at this time body snatching was frequent". During 1827 and 1828, Burke and Hare brought a new dimension to the trade of selling corpses "to the doctors" by murdering rather than grave-robbing and supplying their victims' fresh corpses for medical dissection. Their activities, and those of the London Burkers who imitated them, resulted in the passage of the Anatomy Act 1832. This allowed unclaimed bodies and those donated by relatives to be used for the study of anatomy, and required the licensing of anatomy teachers, which essentially ended the body snatching trade. The use of bodies for scientific research in the UK is now governed by the Human Tissue Authority.〔John Fleetwood, The Irish Body Snatchers, Tomar Publishing, Dublin, 1988. ISBN 1-871793-00-9 pp. 9–13〕 1862 saw a late example of body snatching occur at the Wardsend Cemetery in Sheffield. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「body snatching」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|