The sack-'em-up men : an account of the rise and fall of the modern resurrectionists / by James Moores Ball.

  • Ball, James Moores, 1863-1929.
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The sack-'em-up men : an account of the rise and fall of the modern resurrectionists / by James Moores Ball. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    regarded as outlaws. For, by what right does an alleged scientist of the present day disturb the tomb of the Egyptian ruler who lived three thousand years before Christ ? or burglarise the sarcophagus of a later date? Wherein is he less sacrilegious than were the wretches who, less than a century ago, sold hundreds of stolen—and a few dozens of murdered— bodies to the teachers of anatomy ? Is there no balm in Gilead ? Is there no rest for the dead ? Both types belong to the ever-increasing class of vandals. Both have carried on their work in hope of a reward. The one will find it in the applause of the public, in a royalty from his publisher, or from the satisfaction which comes from seeing his name placed in the latest book treating of ancient history. The other, in bygone days, found it in a cash payment. Both, speciously, may claim to be aides-de-science and the promoters of knowledge. To the relic hunter of churchly or of vulgar note, and to his cousin who is disguised as an anthropologist, nothing ever has been sacred. The desire for post-mortem repose reaches back to the early mists of the morning of the world. The primitive Christians put epitaphs on the tombs of deceased relatives, asking the vengeance of heaven on any and all persons whose hands should disturb the ashes of the dead (MacGregor).^ Likewise, the same early followers of Christ regarded the crowning of the deceased with chaplets of flowers as little less than idolatry (Kennett).^ Several of the Popes hurled anathemas against the disturbers of the dead. 1 MacGregor, The History of Burke and Hare^ Glasgow, 1884, p. 17. ^ Kennett, Ro7n(2 A.nttQUCB Notitia, or. The J\.nti(]^uities of Ro?ne^ second American edition, Baltimore, n.d., p. 3^5* (Basil Kennett, D.D., 1674-1714, entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1690. The work mentioned appeared at London, in 1696, and has been frequently reprinted.)