Art Resource - AR925387

Resurrectionists or body snatchers raiding a cemetery to provide a cadaver for dissection, 1887. Artist: Hablot Knight Browne

Resurrectionists or body snatchers raiding a cemetery to provide a cadaver for dissection, 1887. The phenomenon of body snatching became increasingly prevalent in the late 18th and early 19th century. Demand from doctors for cadavers for dissection outstripped supply, and as a result, body snatchers began stealing corpses which they would supply to doctors for money. Two notorious Edinburgh criminals, William Burke and William Hare, took the process a stage further, murdering tramps and then supplying their bodies to anatomists. From The Chronicles of Crime by Camden Pelham. (London, 1887).

Unique Identifier AR925387

Type Image

Purpose Public

Size 2795px × 3850px

Photo Credit HIP / Art Resource, NY

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