The 19th Century Dead Piracy Business

One quiet night in 1881, three thieves stole into a remote cemetery in Ohio, USA. They took a look at a body that had been buried for a short time and planned to steal it. But just as the three men opened the grave, an explosion happened before they could make it. The burglar who rushed to the front line was killed on the spot, and another burglar broke a leg in the explosion. The explosion not only left the robbers in a terrible state, but also transformed the grave from one corpse into two pieces.
Why did a good end of the grave suddenly explode?
The original group of corpse robbers trampled on the thunder unfortunately, chose a "bomb grave" to start. This kind of grave looks like the ordinary one. In fact, there are traps in the coffin to kill people. There is a kind of mine-like detonation device hidden inside. Once the coffin lid is lifted, it triggers an explosion. At this time, the burglars who live to open the grave are very difficult to leave alive, even the body in the coffin may be blown to pieces.
And this accident is not an example. In the 19th century in Europe and America, many graves concealed such bomb organs.
At that time, there was an endless battle between the burglars and the burglars. The incidents of body theft continue to occur, and there are not a few thieves who were killed or injured by the body theft. The burials were even determined to blow up the thieves rather than leave the whole body behind.
In fact, this is a helpless move, before this, people’s anti-theft measures are not so ferocious. A device called mortsafe was first built in the early nineteenth century. This is actually the construction of a huge iron cage above the cemetery.
Soon mortsafe was gradually eliminated, and people’s anti-theft methods rose from simple defense to passive attack. The burglar-proof man installed a graveyard gun in the grave that could kill people. Its prototype is actually a common short-barreled shotgun, which is hidden in the vicinity of the cemetery after simple modification. The shotgun is mounted on a rotating base, placed at the end of the grave, pointed to the head, and a tripping mechanism is set to control the switch.
If a burglar accidentally touches a tripping net, the gun fires immediately and sprays.
In 1878, Philip Clover, an artist from Ohio, applied for a patent for his invention of the tomb bomb. The inventor placed the bomb mechanism in the coffin cover this time. Only when it was opened can the bomb be found. At the same time, the bomb was detonated. Three years later, some people improved the tomb bomb and extended the detonation device to the outer shell of the coffin to make cabling like hanging the coffin. In this way, the burglar may be killed before he opens his coffin to see the real face of the theft.
The cost of corpse theft is so high, but why are there so many people who are not afraid of corpse theft?
At that time, the profits brought by corpses were so attractive.
According to records, in England in 1811, an adult’s body sold for 440 pounds (at that time a bicycle sold for only 4 or 5 pounds). Even so, there is always a shortage of bodies stolen by corpses robbers.
The buyer of corpses is not a cadaveric aberration, but a regular medical school. Sometimes it’s medical students who steal corpses themselves.
The medical school’s demand for cadavers is actually to provide materials for students’anatomy courses. But the stock was insufficient, so they had to buy it from the black market at a high price.
Why only in the nineteenth century did corpse theft become rampant? This is also the result of complex social problems.
After the American Civil War, a large number of medical schools began to emerge, which means that the number of medical students enrolled increased. In London, England, there were only over 200 medical students in 1793, and by 1823 there were more than 1,000.
At the same time, it is also the key point of medical system reform. Anatomy classes have been conducted in the past, but many students watch the teacher dissect a corpse from the sidelines. After the reform, in order to enable students to obtain first-hand anatomical experience, it is stipulated that each student should have one. So more fresh corpses are needed to meet the teaching needs.
On the one hand, the need for dissection is increasing, while on the other hand, there is an increasing shortage of cadavers for dissection. At that time, many countries around the world were carrying out effective death penalty reforms to reduce the proportion of criminals sentenced to death. The decrease in death penalty criminals has a direct impact on the reduction in the number of corpses available in medical schools. By the 19th century, only about 56 people were sentenced to death every year in Britain, but medical schools needed up to 500 general teachers every year. The market environment of shortage of supply and demand has led to the sale of corpses in the black market.
For a long time, corpse theft has been a grey area in European and American law. The corpse theft is not a serious criminal offence, and the punishment is only a fine or imprisonment. After all, the ultimate goal of corpse theft is to meet the needs of anatomy, which is also a legitimate reason for the development of medicine. But coveted profits make people fall into the abyss of desire and go to evil ways.
In 1824, a man awoke from his coffin. He had not actually died, but he was consciously incapable of moving. He had experienced the process of being stolen. He even lay on the dissecting table and had his abdomen cut open. He was lucky to be found alive and saved.
In 1832, the United Kingdom passed an Anatomy Act, which allowed medical schools to use corpses of executed criminals as well as those that died in prison without any claim or voluntary donation. By the late 1980s, many states in the United States had also updated their anatomy laws to allow medical personnel to dissect unclaimed bodies.
Solving the problem of corpse supply in medical schools from the source also solves the problem of corpse theft. Looking at this confusing history from a modern perspective, we find that scientific development and system are inextricably linked. When scientific development is difficult, reasonable social policies may become the most critical booster.