Before medical schools were regulated, they relied on a thriving, illicit trade in corpses.

History · Published 30 September 2026 · Updated 25 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: For centuries, the pursuit of anatomical knowledge turned graveyards into supply depots. From the 18th to the 19th centuries, resurrectionists—or body snatchers—systematically exhumed the recently deceased to sell to medical institutions. This macabre industry fueled surgical progress while sparking riots, deep social outrage, and the invention of iron-clad grave security.

The practice of body snatching was driven by a desperate need for fresh cadavers to advance medical education. Before legal reforms like the UK's Anatomy Act of 1832 or various American state laws, medical schools struggled to obtain bodies legally. In the United States, the demand surged as medical training shifted toward hands-on dissection to differentiate 'true science' from empiricism. This created a lucrative market where resurrectionists used specialized tools—ropes, hooks, and tunnels—to extract bodies while carefully replacing dirt and personal items to avoid detection. The trade was so pervasive that families often stood guard over fresh graves, and cemeteries began installing iron mortsafes or hiring armed patrols to deter theft.

The burden of this trade fell disproportionately on the marginalized. In New York, students frequently targeted the segregated 'Negroes Burying Ground,' while in the antebellum South, the bodies of enslaved people were routinely used for anatomical study. At Transylvania University in the 1830s and 1840s, 80% of dissected corpses were African American. Similarly, after the 1862 Dakota War, doctors exhumed the bodies of executed Dakota warriors for dissection and osteological study. Public resentment occasionally boiled over, as seen in the 1788 Doctors' Riot in New York City and the 1882 Philadelphia protests following the discovery of bodies stolen from Lebanon Cemetery.

The medical community often justified these actions as a 'necessary evil' for the advancement of surgery, sometimes claiming they only took the bodies of those without grieving relatives. However, the ethical crisis was undeniable. Prominent figures like John Gorham Coffin questioned the morality of the trafficking, and even some legislators who sponsored anatomy acts were found to be involved in the very grave robbing they sought to regulate. It was not until the 20th century, with the Human Tissue Act 2004 in the UK and the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in the US, that legal frameworks finally prioritized informed consent over the unchecked demands of anatomical science.

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