WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: Why Did People Once Rob Graves for Science?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and this is another classic episode of

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<v Speaker 1>the podcast. This one goes into one of my favorite

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<v Speaker 1>super morbid, very weird pieces of science history, that time

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<v Speaker 1>when the easiest way to obtain research cadavers was by

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<v Speaker 1>grave robbery, which humans, being entrepreneurial, led to at least

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<v Speaker 1>a few murders. Hey brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And

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<v Speaker 1>of all the possible get rich quick schemes you could

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<v Speaker 1>involve yourself in, I'm betting you would stop short of

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<v Speaker 1>serial killing. Yes, even if it meant you'd be aiding

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<v Speaker 1>the advancement of science. But that's not the case for everybody.

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<v Speaker 1>Take William Burke and William Hare, two Irish immigrants who

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<v Speaker 1>ran a boarding house in Edinburgh, Scotland, and killed at

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<v Speaker 1>least fifteen people during a ten month period across eighteen

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<v Speaker 1>twenty seven and eighteen twenty eight. And we're not trying

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<v Speaker 1>to aggrandize serial murders here, but they made a small

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<v Speaker 1>fortune doing it. Burke and Hare had no criminal records

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<v Speaker 1>before they got into the murdering business. Burke was a

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<v Speaker 1>cobbler and hair a laborer who owned a lodging house

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<v Speaker 1>with his wife. When a boarder who owed the Hares

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<v Speaker 1>a good deal of background died one day in November

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen twenty seven, Hare complained to his friend Burke. The

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<v Speaker 1>two decided that the best way to recoup Hare's financial

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<v Speaker 1>loss was to sell the man's corpse to an anatomy

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<v Speaker 1>professor at the University of Edinburgh. Anatomy research was a

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<v Speaker 1>booming business in Edinburgh in the early eighteen hundreds, and

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<v Speaker 1>though many human dissections were conducted every day in the city,

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<v Speaker 1>human remains were hard to come by. A grave robbing

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<v Speaker 1>was frowned upon, but anatomists were only technically allowed to

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<v Speaker 1>study the bodies of deceased prisoners, suicide victims, orphans and

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<v Speaker 1>abandoned children. So Edinburgh's underbelly was crawling with body snatchers.

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<v Speaker 1>Since the demand was high for gadavers and the supply

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<v Speaker 1>relatively low, many anatomists used the services of so called

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<v Speaker 1>resurrection men to fill their human corpse requirements. Resurrection men

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<v Speaker 1>were folks who made a business of body snatching or

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<v Speaker 1>clandestinely removing a body from a burial site. There was

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<v Speaker 1>no law against digging up a dead body and selling

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<v Speaker 1>it since the dead didn't officially belong to anyone. Oh

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<v Speaker 1>what an innocent time, but the general public was perhaps

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<v Speaker 1>understandably dismayed by this practice, in addition to the living's

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<v Speaker 1>emotional attachment to loved ones remains. At the time, many

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<v Speaker 1>Christians were concerned that the dissection of bodies after death

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<v Speaker 1>would prevent the deceased from rising during the final judgment. However,

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<v Speaker 1>anatomists desperate for cadavers were willing to pay good money

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<v Speaker 1>for bodies, sometimes in terrible condition, without asking questions about

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<v Speaker 1>where those bodies came from. A doctor and anatomist named

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<v Speaker 1>Robert Knox was a popular lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.

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<v Speaker 1>When Burke and Hare came to him with that first

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<v Speaker 1>cadaver from the boarding house, Knox paid them seven pounds

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<v Speaker 1>ten for the body. In today's money, that's almost seven

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<v Speaker 1>hundred and fifty pounds or over nine huns durding and

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<v Speaker 1>fifty American dollars, and was almost double with the dead

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<v Speaker 1>man owed hair in back rent. The body was pretty fresh,

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<v Speaker 1>which pleased Knox, and he was even more pleased a

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<v Speaker 1>few months later with the body of Burke and Hare's

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<v Speaker 1>first murder victim. She was a lodger who fell ill

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<v Speaker 1>with fever in the boarding house. Perhaps worried that her

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<v Speaker 1>illness would mean bad business for the boarding house, or

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<v Speaker 1>perhaps looking to make a quick buck, the two men

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<v Speaker 1>suffocated her. Knox paid them ten pounds that's thirteen dollars

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<v Speaker 1>for that cadaver, worth over one thousand pounds or thirteen

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<v Speaker 1>hundred dollars today. Over the course of the next year,

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<v Speaker 1>Knox bought a total of sixteen bodies from the Pear,

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<v Speaker 1>mostly women. Most of their victims were killed, likely with

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<v Speaker 1>the knowledge of the murderer's wives, by applying them with

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<v Speaker 1>whiskey and then suffocating them. Burke and Hare preyed on

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<v Speaker 1>people who were poor and alone or disabled. During the

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<v Speaker 1>eventual trial, the three victims named in the indictment were

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<v Speaker 1>a mentally disabled young man, a young woman reputed to

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<v Speaker 1>be a prostitute, and their final victim, the one who

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<v Speaker 1>got them caught, a middle aged irishwoman named Margaret Doherty.

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<v Speaker 1>Reportedly in Edinburgh's searching for her misas son, Burke and

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<v Speaker 1>Hare were discovered by a couple staying in Hare's boarding house.

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<v Speaker 1>They saw the two men drinking with the woman in

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<v Speaker 1>the evening, and the next morning she had disappeared. They

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<v Speaker 1>found her body packed in straw under a bed, ready

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<v Speaker 1>to be taken to Knox. After the couple alerted the police,

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<v Speaker 1>the authorities rated Knox's cadavers and found the woman's body

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<v Speaker 1>among them. In the trial, Hare testified against Burke, and

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<v Speaker 1>he and his wife were released. Burke's wife was also released,

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<v Speaker 1>but Burke was executed. Knox was exonerated of all charges

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<v Speaker 1>because Burke testified that Knox didn't know about the providence

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<v Speaker 1>of the bodies he was buying. The case was extremely

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<v Speaker 1>high profile, and along with other murder cases, including copycat crimes,

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<v Speaker 1>it led to the passing of the Anatomy Act of

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen thirty two. This controversial legislation opened up anatomist's options.

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<v Speaker 1>Any donated body could not be dissected, but with dissections

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<v Speaker 1>still considered a sort of desecration, the only people who

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<v Speaker 1>considered such a donation tended to be those in poverty.

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<v Speaker 1>The Act therefore shifted dissection from being a sort of

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<v Speaker 1>of secondary punishment for criminals after execution to being a

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<v Speaker 1>sort of punishment for not having the family or funds

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<v Speaker 1>to provide for yourself after death and led to riots

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<v Speaker 1>at the Cambridge Medical School. Though attitudes and laws have

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<v Speaker 1>changed since then, the issue of the ownership transfer and

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<v Speaker 1>treatment of the dead is definitely still under discussion. Today's

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<v Speaker 1>episode is based on the article Burke and Hair Murderers

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<v Speaker 1>for Money and Science on how Stuffworks dot com, written

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<v Speaker 1>by Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff is a production of iHeartRadio

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<v Speaker 1>in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced

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<v Speaker 1>by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit

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