WEBVTT - Casket-a-go-go, Part 2 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.720 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:12.560 welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.080 Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of our 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:19.000 Coffin to Go Go fest here on Invention. It's October, 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:20.720 of course, so we thought we'd bring you plenty of 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.560 reprehensible material. Uh. Today, we're going to be continuing the 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:27.800 coffin journey. Now, last time, what did we look at. 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.600 I think it was mostly about people who were afraid 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.760 they'd be buried alive and inventions on how to get 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.040 around this problem. Yeah. Yeah, that was the primary anxiety 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.040 that those inventions were dealing with. That was the the 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:46.400 main necessity. That was the mother of those inventions. However, 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:48.319 one of the key things we're gonna talking about here 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:52.000 concerns a different threat, a threat that emerged during the 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:57.800 eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in England, well, particularly in 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.600 the UK and also in the US. Yes, but but 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.160 I think generally speaking most people associated with with the 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:08.600 UK and that is a fear of the resurrectionists. Right, 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.040 So the last episode was all about the problem of 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.080 you being stuck in a coffin when you want to 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.000 get out. Today's episode is going to be more about 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.080 you being taken out of a coffin when you want 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.960 to be left in. Yeah, we're talking about grave robbing here. 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.240 And grave robbing, of course, was not a new thing 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:27.720 in the in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Grave robbing 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:29.880 has pretty much always been around as long as we've 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.480 had graves, uh, somebody or something has been willing to 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:37.560 dig those graves up. Some of the ore oldest tombs, 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.120 for instance, the tombs from the ancient world, Egyptian tombs, 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.800 for example, many of these were robbed, uh, you know 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.880 during their time, you know, in these centuries, to immediately 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.840 follow almost immediately after they were sealed. Often I think 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.400 sometimes the implication is that maybe people who were involved 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.400 in the burial of ancient Egyptian rich people and pharaoh's 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.760 or were maybe involved in the creation of these tombs, 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.360 were also involved in opening the tombs back up to 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.320 get the goodies out. Yeah. I mean, it's a good 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:07.920 side hustle. If if you're if you're involved in the 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.640 secreting away of the dead kings, you know, golden treasures, 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.680 you can also make a nice and make a pretty 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.840 penny resurrecting that material bringing it back out. But we 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.399 could make a very important distinction here between removing the 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:26.640 body from a tomb and just removing all the goodies 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.519 from a tomb, right yeah, I mean primarily, when we're 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:33.359 talking about grave robbing in the ancient sense, we are 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.520 talking about stealing badge of valuables that were interred with 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.639 the dead things that we discussed this little in the 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.360 last episode. You know, valuables that they were going to 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:44.760 either they were so important to them that they were 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.560 a part of them and should therefore remain with their bodies, 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.760 or perhaps something of value that would be needed in 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:56.560 the presumed afterlife in the next world, weapons or you know, 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.720 magical items, things that would aid them. But here we're 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.920 talking about the body itself, and now generally speaking, you know, 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:09.000 if we're dealing with something stealing the body itself, generally 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.880 we're thinking more about animals in the ancient sense, right, 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:13.880 He didn't dig your grave deep enough, and so of 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.440 course some scavenging animals sniffed it out, dragged it to 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.040 the surface and consumed all the tasty bits, or of course, uh, 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:25.200 mythical ghoules, right, the graveyard lurking creatures that would eat 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.240 corpse flesh. Yeah, and uh, it is interesting how I 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.440 think there. You can look to some tales of the ghoules, 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.480 and I think there is especially more modern tales and 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.680 tales have emerged. Uh, you know post eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.760 The fears of the fears of resurrectionists are kind of 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.640 combined with fears of the Googles, and and I think 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.000 all of that will make more sense as we proceed here. 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.160 But these resurrectionists were not hungry. They weren't looking for 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.960 a midnight snack. So what were they looking for? Well, 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.920 they were working on behalf of science, or more specifically, 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:01.120 they worked in the employ of an atom who needed 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:05.840 human cadavers, especially for hospitals and for teaching centers. So 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.560 medical science was advancing at a blistering pace, but they 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.200 needed bodies to chart their way into the medical future. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.320 They already had access to executed criminals, and the dissection 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.480 of the criminals corpse was considered a vile fate indeed. Uh, 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.000 But but this wasn't enough. This was not enough to 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.440 meet the demand, right, because you had multiple demands, Like, 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.039 for one thing, you would need fresh corpses to dissect 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.960 for primary research on the human body. But also a 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.000 lot of it was just for education. It was for like, 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.680 you know, teaching for surgical colleges and that kind of 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.360 thing exactly. But and and so here's here's the lucky 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.280 thing for these enterprising resurrectionists. Corpses at the time belonged 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.840 to no one. There's a big gray area here because 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:53.000 again generally speaking through out throughout most of human history, 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:55.080 if someone was going to dig up a gray they 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:57.560 were digging it up for property. They weren't digging it 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:02.800 up for the body itself. So roaming drunken resurrectionist ruled 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.360 that came to rule the night, digging up fresh bodies, 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.680 delivering them to the anatomus, earning their pay. And they 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:13.760 even operated in gangs acting on tips. Again coming back 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.560 to that idea that at times that those involved in 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:19.560 the burial of the dead or sometimes involved in the 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.560 in the breaking of the tomb, because who better who 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.840 has the knowledge? Right, Um, Sometimes these gangs would even 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.680 use fake mourners, and uh, they would war against each 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.880 other for the you know, for the decaying goal that was, 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.040 you know, the freshly dead flesh. Like sometimes they would 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:43.040 I was reading, they would like desecrate another graveyard that 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.520 that bear gang wasn't actually dealing with, but was the 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.640 sort of the domain of another gang to try and 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:52.440 get that gang cleared out to throw the scent off. Yeah. Yeah, so, uh, 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.360 you know, having when I'd read about resurrectionist in the past, 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.000 I kind of just thought of like, okay, you know, 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:01.360 just bumbling drunken criminals, uh, sort of lonely man doing 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:05.279 the lonely work of graveyard scavenging. But at times it 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.799 was it was like a full blown kind of criminal organization. Yeah. 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.560 But also I think the criminality of it is sort 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.920 of a gray area sometimes, and there there are different 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.679 gradations of respectability that seemed to be involved with different 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:23.039 types of grave robbing or grave opening. Like. So, first 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:24.480 of all, I was reading that it seems to me 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.760 around the seventeenth and eighteenth century in the UK especially, 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:32.160 there were several different trends that all sort of combined 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.800 to make body snatching and especially lucrative trade. So one 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:37.800 of them, of course you already mentioned, is the need 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.560 from medical colleges and anatomists there's an increase in demand. 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.440 The other thing is criminal justice reforms leading to fewer 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.560 executed criminals. So that's a decrease in the traditional supply 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.080 of bodies that these, uh, these colleges can have. And 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.599 then the third thing is sort of a a sort 0:06:55.640 --> 0:07:00.880 of permissive atmosphere, like penalties were sometimes relatively minor if 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.400 you were caught stealing a body as opposed to stealing 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.200 grave goods, and authorities just often turned a blind eye 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.520 to what was going on. I think also a lot 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.200 of times the anatomists getting these bodies maybe didn't ask 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.800 a lot of questions about where they came from. Right, 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:17.840 So there's sort of you know, you know, plausible denied idility, 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.320 like like, I'm a professional, I don't have time to 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.080 worry where the bodies come from. I have important work 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.600 to do. Uh. If if a body comes, I'm just 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:28.120 going to pay the standard rate for it. Uh, And 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.560 I'll just leave. I'll leave law enforcement to figure out 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.920 the rest. Right. But so a quick note on the 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:38.720 relative respectability and legality when comparing body stealing versus grave robbing. 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:43.040 Many or most resurrection men would actually remove the body 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.880 but leave the grave goods if they're were any even 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.920 often I've read that they would take the clothes off 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.720 of the dead person and put the clothes back in 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.560 the grave, uh, and this sort of distinguish them from 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.160 common thieves. But while that distinction might have been important 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.560 to a judge, say if you got caught, or to 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.560 an anatomist, it was not a very good defense to 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.120 the common people to like to say, look, I only 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:09.600 stole the naked body. I left the clothes in there. 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.240 I didn't steal the you know, gold trinket you left 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.520 with him. So many regular people, of course, were furious 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.200 and horrified at the idea that their body or the 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.400 body of a relative might be stolen for medical education 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.880 or research, even if the people stealing the bodies were like, 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.360 I'm not stealing any of the valuable stuff from the graves. Yeah. 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.600 I was thinking about this too in terms of the 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:35.679 resurrection of the body, bodily resurrection, that that some Christians 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.760 believe in the idea that it is important for the body, uh, 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.280 you know, to remain intact because that's the body you're 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.680 going to be in well when Christ returns. Yes, that's 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.280 a really interesting way that changes in religious beliefs over 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.560 time I think have may have changed the demand for 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.560 certain technologies, Like I think most Christians today who believe 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.400 in a resurrection or afterlife believe in the resurrection of 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:03.600 an immage, her real soul, rather than the physical resurrection 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:05.800 of the body, though I think you can quite plausibly 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.120 argue that the latter is more directly what is described, 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.439 for instance, in the epistles Paul in the New Testament. Uh. 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:14.160 And yeah, I think it used to be a more 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.800 common belief that like, I need my dead body, I 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.120 need those bones. Those are what's going to come back 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.360 to life. Yeah, exactly. And you know another thing I 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.920 thought about two is okay, so if the primary one 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:27.679 of the primary fears here is just kind of like 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.520 the the the appalling notion that the body of of 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.800 of a deceased loved one, perhaps someone of status, would 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.080 be dragged out and stripped of its of its belongings 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.319 and dragged away in the night. You also have to 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.200 think about this in the in the within the legacy 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.559 of the disinterment of the former Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:53.040 and the subsequent public execution of his corpse and the 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.720 long running display of his head or at least you know, 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.560 some people some people wonder if that was actually the 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.640 skull of Cromwell have been replaced. But anyway, there was 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:06.840 this legacy already um in England, of of desecrating the 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:11.120 body and and and and and you know, essentially desecrating 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.880 the individual through the act. Was this after the monarchy 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.320 came back to power that took Cromwell's body out of 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.079 the ground, and they said, well, he escaped punishment in life, 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.680 but we'll punish his body. Yeah, I mean, and it's 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:23.760 not I mean, it seems comical now, right, And of 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.640 course it's not just the English that this there there 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.600 are other examples from other cultures where yeah, the body 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.120 of the king of the king is he is later 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:37.680 dragged back out and and and treated in some manner 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.679 that disrespects it. Yeah. Okay, Well, let's say that you 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:44.880 die somewhere around Edinburgh and the you know, early eighteen hundreds, 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.079 and you're incredibly concerned that your body is going to 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:50.679 be yanked out of the grave and take into some 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.400 good for nothing medical college to be dissected in front 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.960 of a bunch of students. What can you do to 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:58.720 prevent this? Well, I mean, the first thing, of course, 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.480 you could do is just the whole fan only hangs 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.480 out with pitchforks and protects the grave. But I think 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:05.720 most of us can agree that would mess with your 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.280 grieving process a little bit, but people did do things 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:11.280 that sometimes. Yeah, I mean I guess in a way 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.120 it would give you something to do and something where 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.400 to like focus your emotions. Of course, if you had 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.679 the money to do so, you could also hire individuals 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.400 to stand guard at your grave. Now, one thing is 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.760 that if you are just worried about having your body stolen, 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.880 as opposed to the theft of valuable grave goods, you 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.520 didn't have to hire a guard for forever until the 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.240 end of time. If you hire a guard like the 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.280 Scottish medical colleges and the anatomis and all these people, 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.120 they're not going to be interested in a rotten, multi 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.559 year old corpse. They want a fresh body with organs 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.400 and living anatomy still intact, so that they can dissect 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:49.760 it to learn things about the body or show things 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.560 about the body. So you only need to guard the 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:56.360 body for as long as the body would be fresh. Basically, 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:58.680 I don't know exactly what counts is fresh, but it 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.120 often seems that this may consisted of you know, this 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:02.800 may have only been a window of a few weeks 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.160 or something. I mean, ultimately, it's whatever the market will bear. 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.640 It's whatever they can then turn around and sell to 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.480 an anatomist. Yeah. The other thing to keep in mind 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.839 too is, okay, what sort of you know, Not to 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.480 be too judgmental, but what sort of individual or you're 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.360 likely to hire to stand guard day and night in 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:24.560 the cemetery watching over the grave of your loved one. 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.040 There's a very strong possibility that this sort of individual 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.720 is the very sort of person who would be eager 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.680 to accept a bribe from the resurrectionist gangs themselves. Yes, 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.280 or maybe your grave guard just has a side hustle 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.520 as a resurrectionist. I mean who Yeah, who better to 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.959 get the tips from and stuff like? If you've got 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:45.880 a guard on your payroll, you don't even have to 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:48.320 stake out a fake mourner at the funeral to see 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:50.400 where the bodies are going in fresh You can just 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.080 hear from the guard. Now. Another solution would be cemmetary 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.679 wide security, right, so you get fences, walls, locked gates. 0:12:57.760 --> 0:12:59.960 But these options, of course, wouldn't work all the time 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.120 and wouldn't be available to everybody. If you were rich, 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.600 you could lock your families bodies inside a secured crypt 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:08.720 or vault. But I think most people, you know, they 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.480 couldn't afford that. Uh. So we're gonna talk about inventions 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:17.920 for individual burials, specifically to prevent the theft of corpses 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.240 and the theft of grave goods. But before we do that, 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:28.839 we're gonna take a quick break. All right, we're back. So, yes, 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:33.360 we've discussed the threat the resurrectionists maybe coming to steal 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.240 our freshly dead bodies away so that they can sell 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:38.360 them to anatomus. What do we do to protect them? 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.200 We've already discussed the possibility of posting guards. Now we're 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:43.800 going to get more into the hardware. Right, So have 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.840 you ever walked through an old cemetery and come across 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:53.360 what looks like grotesque wrought iron animal cages, half buried 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.880 protruding from the earth They or if you haven't, you 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:58.840 should at least look up pictures of these, because what 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.080 they remind me of the most are the cages that 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.480 are often put over air conditioning units in our contemporary 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.680 world for the very same purpose we're discussing here, to 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.960 prevent someone from walking off with said air conditioning unit. 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.680 Uh These are known as mort safes, and this is 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.720 one of the main interventions that was invented to protect 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:24.200 bodies from being stolen by the resurrection men or the resurrectionists. 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.680 They're not vampire traps. Despite the appearance. They're not made 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:29.680 to trap the dead down in the earth. There are 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.280 a lot of urban legends about this, apparently, especially in 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.200 places where mort Safes are common. They were invented in 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.720 the early eighteen hundreds, and the design is pretty simple. 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.640 They're essentially just a metal cage. The purposes to prevent 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.360 human bodies from being disinterred, and so they're partially buried 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.240 wrought iron cages that fit over top of the coffin, 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:52.360 preventing anybody from digging it up. Um. Now another thing 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:54.920 about mort said Now, of course they came in multiple shapes, right. 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:56.680 You could have bigger mort safes that are sort of 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.680 like a big boxy cage that is partially buried in 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.080 the ground. Found uh, prevents you from digging down to 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:03.800 the coffin. You could have other ones that are just 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.040 pretty small and snug and fit over top of the coffin, 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.440 but it prevents you from just breaking the coffin open 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.960 because you've got iron bars in the way. Now with 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.600 some of these more it's safe again. You benefit from 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.440 the fact that what the anatomists are looking for are 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:21.000 fresh corpses. So again, the mort safes would not necessarily 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:23.480 have to be bought and kept in place in perpetuity. 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:25.920 You really only needed it as long as it took 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:30.280 for the corpse to become unappetizing. Too. It's it's buyer, 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:32.720 So you could put a more safe in place until 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:35.240 you're good and putrid, and then you dig it up 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:37.800 or dismantle it with the tackle system, and then it 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.920 can be reused on another grave. Now I've read in 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.600 multiple sources that mort safes are mostly found in Scotland, 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:46.680 and of course that would line up with a lot 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.040 of other stuff we were reading about body snatching being 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:53.520 a particular historical problem in eighteenth and nineteenth century Scotland. 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.400 I think, especially like around Edinburgh or there. You know, 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:58.520 there's a lot of medical college stuff going on there. 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.640 But I know I have seen these in the United States. 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.600 I like to walk around old cemeteries, and while I 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:07.000 can't say for sure, I'm almost positive i've seen them 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.600 in old southern cities, like in Savannah, Georgia, or in Charleston, 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.520 South Carolina. Yeah, that's interest. I don't believe I have 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:17.640 seen one in Atlanta, and I've I've walked around Atlantis 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.920 cemeteries a fair amount. It's possible I've missed it. But 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.320 it does make sense. I mean, you again, you would 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.720 need to You would be most concerned about grave sites 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.240 that are located in large enough areas that there would 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.400 be an atomist present, right. So I've read that these 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:37.840 are most common like around Edinburgh, around London, around Philadelphia, 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:42.560 places where there would be learning taking place, uh that 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.440 where where a dead body might come in useful. I 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.560 wonder to what extent to this is? Like ultimately it's 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.400 a calm. It's a clash of cultures, you know, the 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.480 this this new the new science, the new anatomy, versus 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.760 the more supernatural ideas of what our body is for, 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.400 you know, and this is kind of the conflict that 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:05.160 emerges where those two worlds meet. Because totally yeah. Because 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:06.919 one thing that also comes to mind is like if 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:10.119 I if I was if I really didn't care about 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.600 the state of my body, Like one way to to 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.520 try and keep this from happening is to say, look, um, 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:17.680 my body, I'm gonna let it make sure it's plenty 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.440 rotted before it's buried. You know, or or I'm going 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:22.320 to make sure my body is mangled in such a 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:23.680 way that it will be a little used to the 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:28.480 anatomus um. But obviously, the people burying the dead, you know, 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:30.760 they still were very concerned with the idea of getting 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.920 the body in the grave before it decomposed, before the 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.440 you know, the signs of death were really apparent and 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.360 and certainly not you know, predsecrating it in anyway. Right, Well, 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:46.040 you could leave instructions like Frederick Chapan in the last episode, 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.080 who is like, make sure they cut my heart out 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.119 so I don't get buried alive. Yes, but he wanted 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.280 to be dissected actually to prevent being buried alive. Here 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:56.600 you could come out from the other hand and say, 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.600 I don't want to be dissected, so instead cut me 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:01.600 up into little pieces so I will be of no 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.320 use to the anatomists. But then again, I'm not sure 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.640 that's always true, because I've also read accounts of sometimes 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.160 people working in mortuary services at the time being able 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.080 to just say, snip off certain extremities from dead bodies 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.800 that would be obviously obviously of lesser value to an 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.159 anonomous than a full dead body, but still maybe of 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.480 some value, right, you know, and we see some of this, uh, 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:27.400 I mean, certainly today we live in a time when 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.040 plenty of people will will donate their body to science 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:32.159 when they die or they're you know, they certainly make 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.159 sure that their organ donors, like people realize to varying 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.719 degrees that they will not need a body once they 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:41.920 are dead, and if they're things that can be gained, uh, 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.399 you know, certainly for the for the medical world or 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:49.639 other people's lives and livelihoods, then those organs should be 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.240 taken out, or even the whole body should be utilized 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.320 for that purpose. But this was this would have been 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.399 an extremely radical idea at the time. Yeah, I think 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:00.920 it reflects a a sea change in cul tural attitudes 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.840 towards uh, anatomy and medical science and medical education and 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.480 all that kind of stuff, because that would obviously be 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.240 another way to cut out the resurrectionist man, is to 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:14.000 deal directly with the anatomis um and and then some 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.320 individuals likely did that, I'm guessing, but they would have 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:19.040 certainly been the exception to the rule, yes, uh. And 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.320 there there would be other advantages to dealing directly with 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.639 the anatomists, such as avoiding what I'm about to talk about. 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.440 Uh So, the trade and dead bodies at this time 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:33.080 also sometimes took ludicrous and horrific turns. In the late 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:37.159 eighteen twenties, there was one famously awful incident that resulted 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.359 in uh well, you could say it came basically from 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:45.040 the direct pressures of the dead body economy. So at 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.560 this stage, due to legal and technological restraints like the 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.240 introduction of mort safes in the early eighteen hundreds, legally 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:56.000 dessectible bodies are in very short supply. But Edinburgh and 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.520 the medical colleges and the anatomist still need bodies for science. 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.560 And one such anatomist was the Scottish physician and scholar 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.120 Robert Knox, who was an esteemed member of the Royal 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:11.240 College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. And Knox, like his peers, 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:15.000 would arrange payments to have bodies brought to his dissecting room. 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.199 And it seems like many of his other peers, he 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.640 again didn't ask a whole lot of questions about where 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.159 they came from. You know, let's just assume that the 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.640 cadavers are legit. So here into the story come two 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:30.240 dudes named William Burke and William Hair. Both were born 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.359 in Ireland, but by the eighteen twenties they both immigrated 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.760 to Edinburgh and Scotland, and in eighteen seven Hair was 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.200 working as the keeper of a public lodging house. So 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.639 that year Burke also showed up in the house. I 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.400 believe he was originally a lodger there, but they sort 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:49.119 of got together and started collaborating, and in November of 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.720 eighteen twenty seven, Hair became annoyed because one of the 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:55.560 people living in the house that where he was renting 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:59.240 out the rooms died while owing him four pounds in rent, 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:03.399 and in order to recuperate the back owed rent, Burke 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:05.480 and Hair came up with a plan to sell the 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.760 body of the dead tenant to local anatomist Robert Knox. 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.760 Again the the anatomist I just mentioned a minute ago. 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.560 So they got seven pounds for the body. That's a 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.320 nice profit. They were owed four they got seven for it, 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:19.439 or they got more than seven, I think seven pounds 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:23.320 and tenpence or so. You can see how one might 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.080 begin to get ideas. It's almost kind of like the 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:30.160