The Rise of Resurrection Men

Throughout the first three decades of the nineteenth century, doctors and medical schools across Europe struggled to find adequate supplies of bodies that could be used for the purposes of teaching in a medical theater. The outsized demand for fresh cadavers led to the rise of “resurrection men", AKA Graverobbers. Disgusting duo William Burke and William Hare found what they believed to be a wildly easy way to provide doctors with a steady stream of recently deceased bodies. In the end, they brutally killed at least sixteen people. The crimes left an chilling mark on Edinburgh specifically, and all of Scotland in the end.

Thank you to Dave White for research assistance.

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