From beyond the grave....

This week, I have been mostly searching through the National Archives of Scotland online catalogue. It started off perfectly innocently, looking for mentions of my ancestors and where they lived, but then the forces of darkness grabbed hold of me, plunging me into a world of criminality, medical experiments, and grave-robbing: the resurrectionists got me.
It's easy today to take for granted the wonders of modern science and medical advances, but they came at a cost: in order to learn their craft and develop new techniques, doctors, surgeons and medical students needed to practice dissection. And a lack of available subjects to practice on in the pre-Victorian era necessitated nefarious means of obtaining corpses. This was the era of the grave-robbers, stealing the newly-dead from their coffins and spiriting them to one of the flourishing medical schools. This unpleasant practice was often carried out by those in the medical profession themselves, with the legal system largely turning a blind eye, but as the demand for bodies grew, others saw a means of making a profit.The price which could be fetched for a reasonably fresh dead body was a handsome amount, perhaps almost enough to tempt the more dubious characters into pursuing the less taxing approach of murder....
Step forward Mr William Burke and Mr William Hare, notorious murderers of 1820s Edinburgh, killing those unfortunate enough to share a drink with them, and passing the bodies onto Dr Knox at the University. It was a gruesome business, and brought public revulsion, and execution for Burke when finally they were caught (Hare escaped prosecution as the case relied on his evidence). Their case has haunted Scottish folklore ever since, as have tales of the resurrectionists' exploits, tales from a time long gone, but still echoing in every hospital, with every new medical discovery, with each reassurance of the surgeon's skill.