The Origins of the Morgue

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

In the 1800s, hundreds of thousands of people started moving to Paris. There was more of what we would perhaps consider now to be untimely death. Two-thirds of the bodies in the morgue were reported to be pulled from the sand. The police would distribute photographs of the bodies and ask people to identify them.

When a toymaker and a doctor teamed up to make the world’s first CPR doll, they decided to make the doll’s face look like one specific woman – a woman who they thought had drowned. People call her l’Inconnue de la Seine, or the Unknown Woman of the Seine.

Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow.

Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast.

We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

Artwork by Julienne Alexander.

Episode transcripts are posted on our website.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices