Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom

Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom

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The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 31, 2014 by BencherliteTalk 10:29, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Resurrectionists were commonly employed by anatomists in the United Kingdom during the 18th and 19th centuries to disinter the bodies of the recently deceased for anatomical research. Between 1506 and 1752 only a very few cadavers were available each year. The supply was increased when, in an attempt to intensify the deterrent effect of the death penalty, Parliament created the Murder Act 1752. The new law allowed judges to substitute the public display of the dead or dying bodies of executed criminals with dissection—a fate generally viewed with horror—and significantly increased the number of bodies anatomists could legally access. But it proved insufficient to meet the needs of the hospitals and teaching centres that opened during the 18th century. Corpses and their component parts became a commodity, but although the practice of disinterment was hated by the general public, bodies were not legally anyone's property. The resurrectionists therefore operated in a legal grey area. (Full article...)