Editing Body snatching (section)

==United Kingdom==
Before the [[Anatomy Act 1832]] ([[2 & 3 Will. 4]]. c. 75), the only legal supply of corpses for anatomical purposes in the UK were those condemned to death and dissection by the courts. Dissections, the main way doctors aimed to gain understanding, required fresh corpses.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2007-02-13 |title=East End of London history, bodysnatchers, resurrection men, the jago, boundary estate |url=http://www.eastlondonhistory.com/italian%20boy.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070213042052/http://www.eastlondonhistory.com/italian%20boy.htm |archive-date=2007-02-13 |access-date=2022-05-06}}</ref> Those who were sentenced to dissection by the courts were often guilty of capital crimes, such as murder, burglary, rape, and arson.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ward |first=Richard M. |date=2015-01-01 |title=The Criminal Corpse, Anatomists and the Criminal Law: Parliamentary Attempts to Extend the Dissection of Offenders in Late Eighteenth-Century England |journal=The Journal of British Studies |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=63–87 |doi=10.1017/jbr.2014.167 |issn=0021-9371 |pmc=4374108 |pmid=25821241}}</ref> However, in 1832, Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the [[Anatomy Act 1832]], which gave doctors and medical students the right to dissect donated bodies for education and research purposes.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Knott |first=John |date=1985 |title=Popular Attitudes to Death and Dissection in Early Nineteenth Century Britain: The Anatomy Act and the Poor |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27508747 |journal=Labour History |issue=49 |pages=1–18 |doi=10.2307/27508747 |jstor=27508747 |issn=0023-6942|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Although this act was created to stop the illegal tradeoff of corpses, it did not provide near enough corpses needed by medical schools annually, which could be up to 500 in number.<ref name=":0" /> This led to increased numbers of body snatching in the United Kingdom.

Interfering with a grave was a [[misdemeanour]] at [[common law]], and therefore punishable only with a fine and imprisonment rather than [[penal transportation]] or execution.<ref name=":1">''R v Lynn'' (1788) 100 All ER 395 ruled that taking a body from a churchyard a misdemeanour.</ref> However, dissection of these bodies and theft of items within the graves was illegal. This caused the body snatchers to only take the body and leave everything else behind in the grave. Medical students and staff did not ask where the bodies came from.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=body snatching {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/body-snatching |access-date=2022-05-06 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> The trade was a sufficiently lucrative business to run the risk of detection,<ref name=EB1911/> particularly as the authorities tended to ignore what they considered a necessary evil.<ref>John Fleetwood, ''The Irish Body Snatchers'', Tomar Publishing, Dublin, 1988. {{ISBN|1-871793-00-9}} pp. 14–18</ref> Body snatchers had a limited period in which they could dig up a body before it began decomposing, so that the body could be embalmed. They had to remain undetectable while exhuming the bodies and transporting them from the gravesites to the medical facilities.<ref name=":2" />

[[File:Mortsafe, Greyfriars Kirk.jpg|thumb|left|[[Mortsafe]] in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh]]

There were several methods used in obtaining a corpse. Once such was digging down to the head-end of the coffin and breaking the top open, using a rope or hook to grab the body by its neck and hoist it out of the coffin. Body snatchers were careful to put any clothing, jewelry, and personal belongings back into the coffin before refilling the hole, and trying to smooth out the gravesite as much as possible to look undisturbed.<ref name=":2" /> What distinguished body snatching from grave-robbing was the practice of returning belongings to the gravesite before moving on.<ref name=":2" /> Removing belongings from the corpse would make them liable to prosecution.<ref name=":1" />

''[[The Lancet]]''<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(02)00256-8 |journal=The Lancet |volume=147 |issue=3777 |pages=185–187 |year=1896|title=Thomas Wakley }}</ref> reported another method.
A [[manhole]]-sized square of turf was removed {{convert|15|to|20|ft|0}} away from the head of the grave, and a tunnel dug to intercept the coffin, which would be about {{convert|4|ft|1}} 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".

Body snatching became so prevalent in the UK 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 ''[[mortsafe]]s'', well-preserved examples of which may still be seen in [[Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh|Greyfriars]] churchyard, [[Edinburgh]].<ref name="EB1911" />

In relation to body snatching, murder for the purpose of selling the corpses to medical schools also occurred.<ref name=":2" /> The term "burked" was coined after [[Burke and Hare|William Burke]], an Irishman, was found guilty of murdering and selling the bodies of at least 16 people. Burke would pinch the nose of his victims and lay on their chest so that there was no physical damage to the bodies.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=William Burke |url=https://www.ed.ac.uk/biomedical-sciences/anatomy/anatomical-museum/collection/people/burke |access-date=2022-05-06 |website=The University of Edinburgh |date=April 2019 |language=en}}</ref> He was hanged and dissected for his crimes in 1829.<ref name=":3" />

Many laws passed by Parliament covered body snatching or similar practices. The [[Human Tissue Act 2004]] created the first overarching law that required informed personal consent to be needed for body or organ donation within medical facilities.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Human Tissue Act 2004 |url=https://www.hta.gov.uk/guidance-professionals/hta-legislation/human-tissue-act-2004/ |access-date=2022-05-06 |website=www.hta.gov.uk |language=en}}</ref>