The idea for this sign struck me as I was reading about the ressurectionists (grave robbers) and anatomists (surgeons and scientists).
Corpses were once in rare supply, though much needed by the medical and scientific professions. For reasons religious and cultural too few people were willing to donate their bodies for dissection upon death. This need provided ressurectionists with a thriving profession, and terrified many with the fear that they would be exhumed shortly after their internment. An excerpt from a poem by Robert Southey titled 'The Surgeon's Warning' from the early nineteenth century expresses the fear of an anatomist concerning the fate of his own body.
All kinds of carcasses I have cut up,
And the judgment now must be--
But brothers I took care of you,
So pray take care of me!
I have made candles of dead men's fat
The sextons have been my slaves
I have bottled babes unborn, and dried
Hearts and livers from rifled graves
And my Prentices now will surely come
And carve me bone from bone
And I who have rifled the dead man's grave
Shall never have rest in my own.
To end this fear, it was recognized that a supply of bodies should be legally provided for, so that the lack of demand would prevent the need for thievery. The debate raged concerning who among the populace should have their corpses appropriated. Prostitutes and perverts, assorted criminals, drunkards, suicides, and simply the poor and lower classes were seen by many as ideal candidates, either because while alive they had abused the bodies God had given them, or else because God had not provided them with wealth or breeding in life and so surely must not have favored them.
In 1832 the British Parliament passed the 'Anatomy Act.' This act, still the law of the land to this day, allows for unclaimed bodies to be sold by the churches or hospitals in which they perished. Often, this law applied to the lower classes and various minorities, who otherwise would have been put into pauper graves.
Today, enough people donate their bodies that those of the poor are not in great need.
Chas Bogan
