Fear and Terror in Edinburgh, or: How Not To Snatch a Body

[highlyeccentric]

In the absense of anything interesting to say about myself, I bring you a special guest appearance from my Wife, who has been coming home from History and Philosophy of Science full to the gills with shocking tales. Here, she delves into the exciting world of grave-digging.

There was a celebrated coffee-table book written in about 1543 that revolutionized medical practice of the time. Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica (‘about the workings of the human body’) was the first anatomical book to include actual pictures. The popularity of this book meant that, in ensuing years, anatomy went from being a back-room science and something nice people don’t really talk about, to the centre of medical practice in Europe.

By the 18th Century, however, the standards of anatomical teaching in universities in the UK had become absolutely abysmal. So, given the penchant of the burgeoning middle classes to try anything to make a buck, private anatomy schools were opening up all over the kingdom. One of the most famous was in Edinburgh, and belonged to one Robert Knox.

Unfortunately for Knox and his contemporaries, bodies for anatomizing were awfully difficult to come by. The universities benefited from a Royal decree that meant they could get the occasional body of a State-executed criminal (usually men who had been hanged), but private anatomy schools had to resort to shadier undertakings, such as deals with lazy gravediggers. Obviously, this wasn’t exactly a reliable supply, and most of the schools were happy to take bodies from pretty much anyone, and didn’t ask too many questions about where exactly the bodies came from.

At about this time, there was a lot of work happening for the lower classes as well, as there was a canal being dug from Edinburgh to Glasgow. A lot of labourers were imported from Ireland, and among these Irish labourers was a pair called William Burke and William Hare, who worked together on the canal by day, and also lodged in the same quarters by night. One night, an old bloke dies in their lodging house. Nobody wanted to cough up the money to have him buried, so Burke and Hare wait till the cover of darkness, wheel him down to the anatomy school and sell him. This gets them a lot more money than their usual wage, so they go on a bit of a spree to celebrate and get a wee bit tipsy. At some stage during the night, somebody (legend has it was Hare, who looked creepier and was therefore seen as more evil) suggested that as this was a brilliant way of making money, they should do it more often.


So they go on a killing spree. They’d smother them with a pillow, as not to mark them, and then trot the bodies up to Knox’s school after dark, get paid, and get drunk. After a while, they began to get drunk *before* the murders as well afterwards, and this increased their carelessness. They became noisier, and started choosing victims who were better-off and more likely to be missed, and people started taking notice. Some 20 victims later, they were caught.


Unfortunately, there wasn’t really enough evidence to convict them – Edinburgh had no real police force at the time, so there was nobody to go and detectorate. They were both given the option of turning ‘King’s Evidence’, and grassing out on the other in order to save their own skin. Hare decides this is quite the good option, and is pardoned for his cooperation, and promptly disappears from the history books. Burke, alas, is convicted and hanged.


Now, you remember the Royal decree mentioned earlier, that let the universities anatomise the bodies of convicted felons? Well, in a truly ironic twist of fate, this is exactly what happened to poor Burke.

You remember, also, that the whole reason for private schools such as Knox’s was that the anatomical practice in the universities was absolutely terrible. Chances are, his body was rather badly carved up, and popular stories had it that they made a purse of his skin, which continues to haunt the corridors of Edinburgh university to this very day.