Editing Body snatching (section)

===Use in medical schools===
{{See also|Sociopolitical issues of anatomy in America in the 19th century}}
The demand for cadavers for human dissection grew as medical schools were established in the United States. This was due to the demand for students to have more first-hand experiences with multiple cadavers, rather than observing dissections on only one specimen. The sudden advances in surgery were what brought on this demand for cadavers for medical school students to learn more about internal anatomy.<ref name="Highet 415–440">{{Cite journal |last=Highet |first=Megan |date=2005-12-01 |title=Body Snatching & Grave Robbing: Bodies for Science |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240536269 |journal=History and Anthropology |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=415–440 |doi=10.1080/02757200500390981|s2cid=162248891 }}</ref> Between the years of 1758 and 1788, only 63 of the 3500 physicians in the [[Colonies]] had studied abroad, namely at the [[University of Edinburgh Medical School]].<ref name="Moore82">{{cite journal |doi=10.1097/00000658-198211000-00004 |author=Moore FD |title=Two hundred years ago: origins and early years of the Harvard Medical School |journal=Ann. Surg. |volume=196 |issue=5 |pages=525–535 |date=November 1982 |pmid=6751245 |pmc=1352783 }}</ref>  Study of anatomy legitimized the medical field, setting it apart from homeopathic and botanical studies. Later, in 1847, physicians formed the [[American Medical Association]], in an effort to differentiate between the "true science" of medicine and "the assumptions of ignorance and empiricism" based on an education without the experience of human dissection.<ref name="trafficdead" /> In addition, the medical community wanted to grow medical students’ knowledge and improve their education by creating a licensing system to terminate those who only went to medical school for pleasantry. By requiring training in anatomy as a prerequisite, this demanded the need for cadavers for medical school students for their graduation.<ref name="Highet 415–440"/>

==== University of Pennsylvania Medical School ====
The University of Pennsylvania was the first medical school in America in the 18th century.<ref name="MONTGOMERY 1966 374–393">{{Cite journal |last=Montgomery  |first=Horace |date=1966 |title=A Body Snatcher Sponsors Pennsylvania's Anatomy Act |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24621865 |journal=Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences |volume=21 |issue=4 |pages=374–393 |doi=10.1093/jhmas/XXI.4.374 |jstor=24621865 |issn=0022-5045|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In 1762, [[John Morgan (physician)|John Morgan]] and [[William Shippen Jr.]] founded the medical department of [[University of Pennsylvania]].  Shippen put an advertisement in the [[Pennsylvania Gazette]] in November 1762 announcing his lectures about the "art of dissecting, injections, etc."  The cost was "five pistoles." In 1765, his house was attacked by a mob, claiming the doctor had desecrated a church's burying ground. The doctor denied this and made known that he only used bodies of "suicides, executed felons, and now and then one from the [[Potter's field|Potter's Field]]".<ref name=Keen>{{cite book |title=Addresses and Other Papers |author1=Keen, William Williams |year=1905 |publisher=W.B. Saunders & Co. |url=https://archive.org/stream/addressesotherpa00keenuoft/addressesotherpa00keenuoft_djvu.txt}}</ref> Later in the 19th century, this school issued an anatomy law that would be state-wide, which was issued around the statement of grave-robbing. This was due to an organized group of grave robbers in Philadelphia. Senator [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24621865 William James McKnight] was the person behind the upbringing of the state-wide anatomy law and was involved in grave-robbing himself after this act was finalized to the public.<ref name="MONTGOMERY 1966 374–393"/>

==== Boston Medical School ====
In Boston, medical students faced similar issues with procuring subjects for dissection.  In his biographical notes, [[John Collins Warren (surgeon, born 1842)|John Collins Warren Jr.]] wrote, "No occurrences in the course of my life have given me more trouble and anxiety than the procuring of subjects for dissection." He continues to tell of the difficulty his father John Warren had finding subjects during the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]]: many soldiers who had died were without relation. These experiences gave [[John Warren (surgeon, born 1753)|John Warren]] the experience he needed to begin his lectures on anatomy in 1781.<ref name=Leypoldt/> His advertisement in the local paper stated the following: "A Course of lectures will be delivered this Winter upon the several Branches of Physick, for the Improvement of all such as are desirous of obtaining medical Knowledge: Those who propose attending, are requested to make Application as soon as possible, as the Course will commence in a few days." It was dated and signed: "Boston 01/01/1781 John Warren, Sec'y, Medical Society."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cfE7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA288 |title=Colonial Society of Massachusetts|volume=19|year= 1918|page=288}}</ref>

==== Harvard Medical School ====
[[Ebenezer Hersey]], a physician, left [[Harvard College]] £1,000 for the creation of a Professorship in Anatomy in 1770. A year earlier, John Warren and his friends had created a secret anatomic society. This society's purpose was to participate in anatomic dissection, using cadavers that they themselves procured. The group's name was the "[[Spunkers]]"; however, speaking or writing the name was prohibited. Often the group used shovels to obtain fresh corpses for its anatomical study.<ref name="Moore82"/>

[[Harvard Medical School]] was established November 22, 1782; John Warren was elected Professor of Anatomy and Surgery.  When his son was in the college in 1796, the peaceful times provided few subjects. John Collins Warren Jr. wrote: "Having understood that a man without relations was to be buried in the North Burying-Ground, I formed a party&nbsp;... When my father came up in the morning to lecture, and found that I had been engaged in this scrape, he was very much alarmed."<ref name=Leypoldt/>

John Warren's quest for subjects led him to consult with his colleague, [[W.E. Horner]], professor of anatomy at [[University of Pennsylvania]], who wrote back: "Since the opening of our lectures, the town has been so uncommonly healthy, that I have not been able to obtain a fourth part of subjects required for our dissecting rooms."<ref name=trafficdead/>

Warren later enlisted the help of an old family friend, [[John Revere]] (son of [[Paul Revere]]) to procure subjects for dissection. Revere called upon [[John Godman]] who suggested that Warren employ the services of James Henderson, "a trusty old friend and servant" who could "at any time, and almost to any number, obtain the articles you desire."<ref name=trafficdead/>

During this time, there was an intense growth in New England of medical programs, which led to an increase in the need for anatomy cadavers. To keep a good supply of bodies became a difficult endeavor. Students were sent away to Boston to seek subjects by grave-robbing. This caused the public to get involved, and people began to set up grave watchers in graveyards to catch those who were snatching the bodies. This led the students to move to New York to find potential bodies for cadavers, which at this time was not the safest option. People were going to jail and were fined for disturbing the gravesites.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shultz |first=Suzanne M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IJPwpgQYwzEC&dq=harvard+body+snatching&pg=PP5 |title=Body Snatching: The Robbing of Graves for the Education of Physicians in Early Nineteenth Century America |year=2005 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-2232-6 |language=en}}</ref>

Warren attempted to set up a cadaver provision system in Boston, similar to the systems already set up in New York and Philadelphia. Public officials and burial-ground employees were routinely bribed for entrance to Potter's Field to get bodies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sappol |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-9cKRzEx6ywC&q=A+Traffic+of+Dead+Bodies |title=A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-century America |date=2002 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-05925-9 |language=en}}</ref> Potter's Field was a public cemetery. These types of places were favored by medical doctors who were in search of bodies to use for their dissections.<ref name="Highet 415–440"/>

In New York, the bodies were divided into two groups–one group contained the bodies of those "most entitled to respect, or most likely to be called for by friends;" the other bodies were not exempt from exhumation. In Philadelphia's two public burying grounds, anatomists claimed bodies regularly, without consideration. "If schools or physicians differed over who should get an allotment of bodies, the dispute was to be settled by the mayor–a high-reaching conspiracy that resulted in a harvest of about 450 bodies per school year."<ref name="trafficdead" />

These medical colleges were targeted by the general public opposed to body snatching, but the medical colleges fought back. One argument was that the medical colleges tried to see them as doing a good thing for the body, since most of the bodies that were taken were ones who did not have loved ones who grieved for them. These schools also attempted to convince the public that the bodies were from a source on the outside, rather than making it look like they had not got permission to take the body.<ref name="Highet 415–440"/>