Laboratory of Human Anatomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow
Correspondence to:
Dr Stuart W. McDonald, Laboratory of Human Anatomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ. email :S.McDonald@bio.gla.ac.uk
Tel: 0141 330 4185 Fax:0141 330 4299
At recent presentations on the history of anatomy in the West of Scotland, our group has been asked whether we would regard the revelations of 1999 - 2001 about organ retention as a modern form of body-snatching. We have compared newspaper reports of the Glasgow Herald from 1823 to 1832, the decade prior to the Anatomy Act of 1832, and the Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times from 1999 to 2001. Clearly body-snatchers appropriated whole corpses while the recent troubles concerned individual organs. Body-snatching was illegal while the crisis over organ retention arose from differing expectations between the medical profession and the public. Both practices caused huge public concern and distress to relatives. There are, however, interesting differences between the two sets of reports. The public had been aware of body-snatching for many years prior to the Anatomy Act, which regulated the supply of cadavers, whereas revelations about organ retention came as a shock. In the organ retention crisis, the parents of the children were more organised in supporting each other and in campaigning for change than were the public in the days of the resurrectionists.
Key words: History; anatomy; pathology; Glasgow; West of Scotland; post-mortem; resurrectionists.
Our group
has been researching the history of body-
snatching in Glasgow and the West of Scotland in the years prior to the Anatomy
Act of 1832.1,2,3 Recently we have been asked, on several occasions, whether
there are parallels between the crisis of the last two years over organ
retention and the outrages perpetrated by body-snatchers in the early 19th
Century. Clearly resurrectionists acquired whole cadavers while 20th Century
researchers retained individual organs, but are there similarities between the
two situations and are there other differences?
This paper compares the circumstances and the public responses in the West of Scotland to these two great issues, both of which caused much distress and led to antagonism between the public and the medical profession.
At Glasgow University library the microfilm versions of each issue of the Glasgow Herald for the years 1823 - 1833 were scrutinised and photocopies made of all articles about body-snatching in Glasgow and the West of Scotland. The University library also possesses original copies of the Glasgow Free Press for the years 1823 - 1826. These too were examined for such accounts and notes made. We referred to the Herald’s website which covers the Herald, the Sunday Herald and the Evening Times, and reviewed all articles in 1999, 2000 and 2001 located using the keywords "organ retention". Reference was also made to the Scottish Report on Organ Retention after Post-mortem.4
We found many similarities but also distinct differences in the circumstances and the public reactions to organ retention and body-snatching in the West of Scotland.
The law on organ retention has been described as "obscure, uncertain and arcane" and is to be completely overhauled in the United Kingdom following the McLean and Redfern Reports. The principal issue was that parents signed permission forms for post-mortem examination without appreciating the significance of the clause that tissue may be retained. In Scotland, there was no illegality about the retention of organs and tissue, although there were clear differences between the expectations of the public and the medical profession.
On the contrary, the law regarding body-snatching was clear. The bodies of hanged murderers were the only legitimate source of dissecting room cadavers. The legislation was, however, wholly inadequate to provide for the needs of surgical training. It is often said that there was no law against the stealing of corpses provided no items, such as grave clothes, were taken but we have found several reports in the Glasgow Herald of circuit courts prosecuting resurrectionists for violation of the sepulchres of the dead. It seems, however, that the authorities only instigated proceedings when relatives claimed a body that had been stolen.
Glasgow Herald 14th Sept. 1829
"On Saturday, Bell the resurrectionist was again brought before Baillie Gray, the Sitting Magistrate, in the Police Court, who asked whether the dead bodies of which we gave an account in our last, had been claimed; and on being answered in the negative, the Magistrate observed, that if they had been owned, the prisoner would have been handed over for trial to the Justiciary Court; but as it was, he must dismiss him at present, with the advice that he should be very careful with regard to his future conduct, as, should he ever be found in connection with such a business again, the present charge would certainly tell most powerfully against him.
Organ retention occurred predominantly in the large teaching hospitals of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee. The number of organs retained in Glasgow, however, was very large compared with trusts in other cities.
Similarly, in the early 19th Century, dissection was carried out in the medical schools of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The medical schools of Dundee and St Andrews had yet to be founded.
The places where graves were most frequently robbed were in the vicinity of these old medical schools. The Glasgow Herald and Glasgow Free Press carry many reports of graves being robbed in and around Glasgow. There are also occasional accounts of graves being robbed further afield, particularly to the south and west of Glasgow: Dumbarton, Paisley, Barrhead, Hamilton, Biggar, Ayrshire. It is impossible to gauge the numbers of bodies which were stolen. East of Glasgow, bodies resurrected round Falkirk and Larbert seem to have supplied the anatomy schools of Edinburgh rather than Glasgow.
That organs of children were frequently retained following post-mortem examination became public knowledge in late 1999 during an inquiry into deaths of children following cardiac surgery at Bristol. Revelations about organ retention came as a shock to the public and also took the Government and Scottish Executive by surprise.
In England and Wales, an inquiry into retention of organs was commissioned by the Department of Health and chaired by Michael Redfern QC. In Scotland, a similar review was requested by the Scottish Health Minister, Susan Deacon, and was chaired by Professor Sheila McLean.
In the years immediately prior to the Anatomy Act of 1832, that cadavers for dissection frequently came from local churchyards was common knowledge. We have been unable to discover with certainty when the first dissection took place in the West of Scotland. Bodies of malefactors and poor people dying in hospitals "with no friends to take exception" had been made available to the medical school of Aberdeen in 1636. Surgeons of Edinburgh were provided with bodies of individuals dying in correction houses and of foundlings dying on the breast from 1694.5
In Glasgow in the early 18th Century, John Gordon is generally credited with being the first to lecture in anatomy in the University, but whether he dissected is less clear. Although the chair of Anatomy and Botany in Glasgow was established about 1720, its first incumbent, Thomas Brisbane, had little inclination to teach anatomy. In the 1740s, rumours about the practical anatomy class stirred mobs into attacking the University. Grave robbing, however, was well known to the authorities and to the public in the first thirty years of the 19th Century Coutts records that . . . in the session of 1802-03 dissection and the means of supplying subjects for it gave rise to excitement and tumult, and in the end of January, 1803, a party of soldiers was retained for the protection of the College, for which an account of £27 was paid.6
The shock in the days of the body-snatchers was not that body-snatching occurred, but that it was discovered in particular locales.
Glasgow Herald 9th March, 1829
"For a considerable time past there has existed a suspicion that the trade of disinterring bodies from the graves of the burying ground of the parish of Kirkmichael, county of Ayr, has been carried on. On the morning of Thursday the 5th inst., the populace insisted on the right of opening some graves, where recent interment had taken place; the parish minister resisted the attempt, advising a more regular mode of procedure, but the anxiety to ascertain the fate of their friends and companions was too powerful to admit of such delay, and to work they went. In the first instance they were too successful, for the empty coffins realised their fears. This prompted the work of examination, and at the close of the day, there were seventeen graves, where interment had taken place within the last six months, which were robbed of their inmates. Today, the 6th, the work of examination was continued, and four more have been found in the same situation; the scene is melancholy - the empty coffins are brought up, and the dead clothes, fresh and white, exhibited across the graves; the relatives are rushing from every part of the parish to know the fate of their departed friends, and it is not easy to describe the anguish they feel when their removal is discovered. The perpetrators have, in some instances, left the bodies of such as have not suited their purpose in a situation too shocking to describe. I visited the place, and was not a little surprised to see a work of this kind done by a populace, without any leader to direct their movements, with as much calmness and order as if they had been paying the last tribute to those they esteem. - The Sheriff will be on the ground tomorrow, to investigate farther into this matter."
Through the organ retention crisis there was public anger over what was described in the Herald7 (18th September, 2001) as "drip by drip revelations", although it may have been press-driven. For example, a hospital in England admitted providing thymus tissue excised at heart surgery to a pharmaceutical firm in return for donations (27th January, 2001) and another hospital had provided skin samples for studies on chemical weapons (10th February, 2001) without the knowledge of the patients. In Glasgow, it was revealed that, in the 1960s, children’s femurs had been excised at post-mortem to investigate whether strontium-90 from nuclear testing was being incorporated into bones (17th June, 2001).
Public anger was also exacerbated in resurrectionist times when news of a new or bizarre outrage broke, such as the importing of bodies, body-snatching in broad daylight or from a house before the funeral. The first of the examples below followed the discovery of bodies on board a steamer newly arrived in Glasgow from Belfast.
Glasgow Herald 31 Oct., 1828
"The circumstance very soon spread abroad, and crowds of people resorted to the quay, not merely for the purpose of gratifying an idle curiosity, but fully determined to miss nothing that the leniency of the authorities might overlook; consequently every hogshead and package that was put on shore underwent a rigid examination, but no more bodies were found."
Glasgow Herald 25 Feb., 1831
"On Monday afternoon the town of Kirkintilloch was in a state of unusual excitement, in consequence of a party of churchyard thieves having been detected committing their unhallowed depredations. The discovery was made by a girl, who saw a sack thrown over the wall of the burying-ground. She gave the alarm instantly: but the thieves, three in number, ran off, two of them escaping. … In the sack thrown over the wall, there was found the body of an old woman, recently interred. Such an outrageous attempt at church-yard violation in broad daylight will, it is hoped, be promptly punished."
Glasgow Herald 12 Mar., 1832
"A daring attempt was made by three scoundrels, on Wednesday night, to carry off the dead body of a boy from a house in High Street. One of them had some acquaintance with the mother of the boy, and procured her assent to their remaining up all night with the corpse. She left them drinking in the house at nine o’clock, to transact some business; and shortly afterwards they were detected by a woman in the act of conveying the body downstairs. She gave the alarm, a crowd collected, and the unnatural villains threw down their burden in the closs and decamped."
The purpose of retaining organs is almost entirely related to medical research. The Herald gives examples of research in which retained tissue has been used: growth of cardiac muscle from stem cells, development of neuronal implants for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
The motives of the medical men of the early 19th Century were similar but not identical to those of the pathologists of the later 20th Century. The Georgian anatomy schools, in Glasgow at least, were primarily interested in teaching and were filled with young men studying for surgical diplomas. There was less emphasis on research, although some did go on. The lectures on the heart and fetal circulation given by James Jeffray, Regius Professor of Anatomy, were the product of deep reading and study of specimens.8,9 In 1811, Allan Burns of the College Street Medical School in Glasgow published his Observations on the surgical anatomy of the head and neck.10 His brother, John, later Professor of Surgery at Glasgow University, published a monograph The anatomy of the gravid uterus in 1799.11
In the past two years, the distress experienced by parents who discovered that organs of their deceased children had been retained has been immense. The distress caused to relatives following the removal of a body from a grave was similar, and probably worse.
Glasgow Herald 29th Dec., 1823
"On Friday, the body of a boy was ascertained to have been stolen from the church-yard of Bridgeton, who was buried on the preceding Wednesday. The robbery was discovered on opening the grave to inter a second child, which died the same week. - The feelings of the unhappy parent may be readily conceived."
Glasgow Herald 27th Feb., 1824.
"The body of a young woman which was lately taken from Sorn Church-yard, was traced to Glasgow, and the robbers discovered by the afflicted father. Finding themselves detected, they agreed to restore the body; but before doing so they imposed on the father the strongest obligations of secrecy, and exacted a solemn promise from him not to prosecute for the offence. The distraction of the family induced him to comply, and he was then directed to call at a certain house in a closs in the Gallowgate, at a particular hour, where he would find the corpse. He went accordingly, and found the body, which he easily recognised, enclosed in a box. - It has since been re-interred in Sorn Church-yard. The Sheriff and Fiscal took a precognition on the subject at Sorn on Thursday last, at the close of which a warrant was issued for the apprehension of the three students at the Glasgow College, who it is reported, have since left the country. - Ayr Courier. "
Glasgow Herald 13th July, 1827.
"A considerable sensation was created in town yesterday, on its being known that the body of a female had been carried off in the course of the preceding night from the North-west burying ground. In order to calm the minds of the populace, and especially of the husband and near relatives of the deceased, who were naturally in the greatest agony at the circumstance, the police officers made every exertion in the course of the forenoon in order to discover the body, in which laudable duty they were ultimately successful. When found, the corpse was bundled up in a box, addressed as follows:- "Mr. John Hamilton, No. 9, Prince’s Street, Edinburgh." - The body was again decently interred last night, to the great consolation of the friends of the deceased."
One of the main differences between resurrectionism and the organ retention row was that by the former the whole population was affected while in the latter the distress was borne principally by those who had had a child die and undergo a post-mortem examination. The parents of the children whose organs had been retained quickly became organised into mutual support groups calling for a public inquiry and a review of the legislation. These organisations, such as the Scottish Organisation Relating to the Retention of Organs (SORRO) and the National Committee Relating to Organ Retention (NCRO), successfully campaigned for reform of the law on post-mortem examination.
Newspaper reports of scenes where a body had been carried off or where such an attempt had been made often describe a crowd gathering. There is usually little suggestion, however, that the relatives and neighbours of the deceased were in any way organised. In the following example, the crowd was so disorganised that it even failed to recover the body, although it was found the next day.
Glasgow Herald 21st Nov., 1828
"On Monday evening, about eight o’clock, some suspicious looking characters were seen lurking about the Abbey Church of Paisley; and a carter having solicited permission from the Beadle to set a horse and cart into a closs immediately adjoining the burying-ground, raised the suspicions of those residing in the neighbourhood that these individuals had some intention of disturbing the sepulchres of the dead; therefore, acting under this impression, a few of the civilians laid hold of one of the persons suspected in Abbey Street, and conducted him, under a numerous escort, to the Newtown Police Office. The crowd, in their over-anxiety to secure this individual, forgot the main object, by thus allowing the carter an opportunity to remove himself and cart off unmolested."
At the time of the organ retention row, there were occasional reports of groups of the bereaved gathering, generally as part of a lobbying campaign, and being described as "angry". Only one report in the Herald during the campaign for an inquiry describes an abusive crowd.
The Herald 1st Jun., 2001
"Angry parents jeered and booed Susan Deacon, Scottish Health minister, yesterday during a protest calling for an independent judicial inquiry into the removal and retention of dead children’s organs without parental consent. . . . Parents said we’re sick of "playing detective" trying to find out the extent of the problem. Dozens of protesters, many holding placards with their dead children’s names and date of death on them, earlier had marched along Princes Street accompanied by a piper before going to the Scottish Parliament."
In contrast, angry and violent crowds were fairly frequent in the body-snatching era. Sometimes suspected resurrectionists were assaulted or property destroyed.
Glasgow Herald 3rdMar., 1823
"Yesterday, between one and two o’clock, a crowd assembled in front of the dissecting room in Duke Street and the doors burst open, and everything contained in it destroyed. The Superintendent and a number of the officers of Police were immediately on the spot, and the appearance of the mob was such that a detachment of the 77th Regiment was sent for. On their approach the crowd dispersed, but in a short time thereafter they assembled in Portland Street, and burst open the outer gate of another dissecting room, when they were immediately checked by Mr Hardie with a party of the 77th. They then made a sortie to a dissecting room in College Street; and finally between seven and eight o’clock they made their appearance in front of Dr Jeffray’s laundry, at the College, suspected to be a dissecting room."
During both the organ retention crisis and the body-snatching era there were voices of concern for the future of medical research.
Ruth Wishart (1st February, 2001) wrote in the Herald:
But in the midst of the angst, breast-beating, and general disgust, it’s important that we don’t lose sight of the very real need to stay on side with the well-motivated researchers and transplant teams who are doing crucial work on our behalf. . . That work is vital . . .
Similarly, Sheila Hamilton in the Evening Times (5th February, 2001) warned:
People will die without transplants, without research. Surely in grieving for our dead we can take comfort from the fact that vital post-mortem research can help the living.
Such comments occasionally appear in the newspapers of the body-snatching era too.
Glasgow Herald 27th Nov., 1828
" . . . if the dissector himself, and all who minister to his wants, even by lawful means, become objects of public execration, there is an end to the study of anatomy and surgery in Scotland." - Scotsman
In both the 19th and 21st Centuries, the need for revised legislation grew out of public concern, and the imbalance between the needs of the medical profession for human tissue and the amount that society was willing to supply. Body-snatching, however, was an illegal activity with which anatomists acquiesced to further their professional aims, generally in the provision of tuition in surgical anatomy.
The requirement for cadavers increased through the late 18th and early 19th Centuries because of demand for surgical training12 and a change from lecture-demonstrations to dissection in the "Paris manner", i. e. dissection by every student, advocated by William Hunter and others.13 In contrast, organ retention was mostly for research purposes and was not illegal, but problems arose through differing expectations of the medical profession and the public.
In retaining tissue after autopsy, the profession in general had no ethical or moral dilemmas, especially since permission had been given with the consent form. We might wonder if, prior to the Anatomy Act of 1832, anatomists were concerned about their reliance on an illegal activity but we have not found any evidence, in the West of Scotland at least, that they did. Certainly ethical stand-points have changed in the last two hundred years. For example, some of Professor Jeffray’s attitudes to the bodies of hanged criminals given to him for dissection seem callous today.3
Our examination of newspaper reports of the organ retention crisis of the last two years and from the decade prior to the Anatomy Act of 1832 have shown similarities between the two situations. Both practices caused much distress. In both, further revelations exacerbated anger. In both, there was recognition that the actions of the medical profession led to public benefit.
On comparing the newspaper articles of recent months with those of the body-snatching era, a number of features stand out as different. One is the style of newspaper reporting. That of the 19th Century is much more dispassionate. The incidents are described but there is rarely direct speech and no interviews with the bereaved or with medical school spokesmen.
The organ retention scandal came as a shock to the public and the authorities while body-snatching did not, except when it occurred in a new locale. In the 1820s, when a body was stolen, passive or disorderly crowds frequently gathered. With organ retention, when crowds gathered it was to attend a public meeting, to campaign or to lobby the Scottish Health Minister. The relatives of the deceased were organised in a way that did not happen in the 19th Century. Then the only organisations were local graveyard watches.
In 2000, parents quickly organised mutual support and pressure groups. Parents were also supported by agencies such as the Scottish Association of Children with Heart Disorders and hospital help-lines.
In the 1820s and early 1830s, the reporters of the Glasgow Herald clearly had much sympathy for those who had relatives stolen from the grave and presumably reflected the feelings of the public at large. The Police were sometimes praised for their assistance in finding bodies or in paying for their re-interment. Apart from the kindness of friends, family and neighbours, there was probably little further support for those whose relatives had been delivered to the dissecting room. Presumably clergy played their part, although their role is never mentioned in the papers.
The modern papers are alone in mentioning compensation and solicitors acting for the bereaved. Only they contain lines such as "If you want to make someone pay for what they have done you have got to take out a legal action for damages", despite the Preliminary Report of the Scottish Independent Review Group stating that it found no evidence that past practice was motivated by anything other than the tradition of medicine in seeking to improve care of future patients.
It is also obvious from the papers that the present time is one of low morale among the medical profession. There is no hint of this in the 1820s. Indeed, the large numbers of medical students studying in Glasgow at this period would suggest that it was a time of great enthusiasm in the profession.12
Comparison of the reports from the early 19th and 21st Centuries, shows a much greater interaction between the public and government ministers at the present day. No mention is made of involvement of national government in the concerns of the townspeople of Glasgow about resurrectionism, although support was provided by the city authorities in the setting up of watches on local churchyards. Many of the press reports about organ retention in Scotland over that last two years concern Ms Susan Deacon meeting bereaved parents.
A number of the recent newspaper articles described that parents felt that they had not completely laid their child to rest until the organs had been cremated or interred. Whether this was general experience or only felt by some parents is unclear, but it is similar to early 19th Century eschatological faith, although at that time more believed in a physical bodily Resurrection.14
Glasgow Herald 5 Jan., 1829
"We wish to lie in our graves till the resurrection, and that our connections should also remain undisturbed in their last abodes."
Acknowledgement: We acknowledge with many thanks the kind support of the staff of the Special Collections and Newspapers Sections of the Glasgow University Library.
1 McDonald, S. W. The life and times of James Jeffray, Regius Professor of Anatomy, University of Glasgow 1790 - 1848. Scot. Med. J;1995 40:119-122.
2 McDonald, S. W. Glasgow resurrectionists. Scot. Med. J;1997 42: 84-87.
3 Kennedy, S. S., K. McLeod, and S. W. McDonald. "… And afterwards your body to be given for public dissection": a history of the murderers dissected in Glasgow and the West of Scotland. Scot. Med. J;2001 46: 20-24.
4 Scottish Report on Organ Retention after Post-mortem, Scottish Executive (November, 2001) website: http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/scotorgrev/.
5 Chambers, R. Domestic Annals of Scotland. W. & R. Chambers, Edinburgh 1854.
6 Coutts, J. History of the University of Glasgow 1451 - 1909. James Maclehose and Sons, Glasgow 1909.
7 Glasgow Herald website: http://isearch.televisual.co.uk/access/Herald.html
8 Jeffray, J. Observations on the Heart and on the Peculiarities of the Foetus. John Smith & Son, Glasgow 1835.
9 McDonald, S. W. James Jeffray: Observations on the heart and on the peculiarities of the foetus. Clin. Anat;1999 12: 35-42.
10 Burns, A. Observations on the Surgical Anatomy of the Head and Neck. Thomas Bryce & Co., Edinburgh 1811.
11 Burns, J. The Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus, with Practical References relative to Pregnancy and Labour. James Mundell and Son, Edinburgh 1799.
12 Duncan, A. Memorials of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow 1599 - 1850. James Maclehose and Sons, Glasgow 1896.
13 Gelfand, T. The "Paris manner" of dissection: Student anatomical dissection in early eighteenth-century Paris. Bull. Hist. Med; 1972: 46:99-130.
14 McDowall, W. Memorials of St. Michael’s: the Old Parish Churchyard of Dumfries. Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh 1876.
FURTHER READING
Pattison, F. L. M. 1987 Granville Sharp Pattison: Anatomist and Antagonist 1791 - 1851. Canongate Publishing, Edinburgh.