-
"The [Spunkers'] game was a dangerous one. The students might be
beaten (or even killed) by friends of the deceased, by rival hijackers,
or the guards whose duty it was to dispose of the body, but to the Spunkers
it was an adventure." (Marks and Beatty 84)
The common identification values and necessity for learning the
human anatomy first hand brought these classmates together. The support
of professors helped fuel these groups and in some instances give them
leadership. Sometimes it was even the master rather than the
student who took bodies. During the Colonial period the Chief Professor
of anatomy in almost every medical school in America had to face charges,
usually verbal, of being a resurrectionist or grave digger.
Armed mobs sometimes would attack these schools in search for the professors
and the bodies used in classroom dissections. One such incident that the
authors Marks and Beatty involves William Shippen, Jr., on January 11,
1770, denying one such event
-
"Sundry wicked and malicious Reports of my taking up Bodies... I never
have had, directly or indirectly, one Subject from the Burying-grounds
belonging to any Denominations of Christians whatever."(Mark and Beatty
85)
-
The Armed mobs wouldn't always be so peaceful in their reponse, by
limiting contension with verbal attacks, sometimes they used physical force.
In the case for two men in Cincinnati the mob had an intent to hang them
on the spot. The authors Marks and Beatty relay the gruesome account,
-
-
"The disconnected parts of about twenty bodies, some destitute of flesh,
others as they were in life," the authors continue on saying, "When the
infuriated mob descended on the place, the proprietor and another man made
their escape in a horse drwn carriage. It was their good fortune
to be arrested for fast driving by two police officers... It was subsequently
learned that the bodies had been legally procured and that the skeletons
were being prepared for scientific purposes." (Marks and Beatty 92)
Riots:
The normal response to grave digging was anger. Anger from the
local church, for their burial grounds being dug up,and the families of
the victims. Many of these angery people manifested into Armed mobs.
With these Armed mobs increased activities, they soon were attacking in
the larger cities of Colonial America. In 1788, New York experienced
a severe riot. The riot started off peacefully, with the petition
of Negroes and slaves on February 4. The petition recognizes dissections
importance but provides the illegal means and enproachment on decency of
the family. This was followed by a rebuttal from a Student of
Physic in the Daily Advertiser defending grave robber stating
that medicines advancement is dependent on their activites with the bodies.
An eyewitness was Colonel William Heth of the Army of Virginia who writes
to the governor. He remarks on a human limb hanging out of a window.
With curiosity the arm was prodded with a stick, next the limb falls out
of the window. Following a mob is raised and begins ransacking the
hospital, finding three fresh bodies. The ransacking of the hospital
and breaking of windows in town forces the mob to face the militia.
After two days, the militia had dispersed the rioters keeping casualties
to a minimum (Marks and Beatty 88). The Resurrection War was
incited when the students of Worthington Reformed Medical College stole
the body of a women from her grave in Potter's Field.
Legislation:
Only after mobs started riots, most notable the Doctors' Riots of 1788
and less violent one in Connecticut did legislation begin to be passed.
Massachusetts was the first to alleviate the growing tensions. The
House of Representives for Massachusetts set a committee to consider and
follow the rise and progress of anatomical science. Starting at three
members, the committee prepared to petition to the legislation. They
hoped to modify laws already enforced which restricted the availablity
of getting subjects for medical dissection. The committee found that
it was vital to all classes of the populous, that dissection was essential
and deserved public encouragement. With the recognition of Anatomical
Science's importance, the State Legislature changed the law to provide
anatomical societies, medical schools, with legalized body, but also increased
the penalties for grave robbing. The law as stated by Marks and Beatty
states,
-
"To deliver to any physician...such dead bodies as may be required to be
buried at public expense and which shall not be claimed...within twenty-four
hours from and after death." (Marks and Beatty 96)
Statutes were later added to such laws to provide body donations,
allowed through a will, deed, or another written mean. These statutes
were created to alleviate the recent raise in body-snatchings or grave
robbings for medical schools (Benard 45). Legislation came later
in Pennsylvannia, only when the major supporter Senator William James McKnight,
a former physician and grave robber, found an organized gang of resurrectionists
in Philadelphia. In 1831, the Ohio General Assembly made
a statute providing for a fine not exceeding $1000 and/ or imprisonment
of up to thirty days in jail for exhuming a corpse from any cemetery or
burial ground (Marks and Beatty 91). As a result of The Resurrection
War, a bill was proposed into state legislation to increase the penalty
of prison term to one to three years. Comments by thirty physicians'
attacks the bill and it fails to pass the Senate.
Conclusion:
With the increase in stolen bodies an increase in legislation, unity
between groups, and even riots occurs. Grave digging provides the
fuel to increase the togetherness between those achieving the same goals,
while they also increase the negative sediment between those opposed and
those supporting body snatching. With the animosities between each
growing the physical chances for conflict increase until it cultivates
into the riots. With the increase in legislature and increased legal
means for medical programs to ensure bodies for their students, grave digging
began to decline. With reduction of student supported grave robbings
by the twentith century, grave robbings had become eliminated as a major
factor for disention in America.
Works Cited:
1. Benard, Hugh Y. The Law of Death and Disposal of
the Dead. NewYork: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1966.
2. Marks, Geoffrey, and William K. Beatty. The Story of Medicine
in America. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,1973.