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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    Frontenac’s coffin in the historic chapel of Recollets, in Quebec (Blowden Davies, Mo7itreal Star, 6th September 1924). There is good reason to believe that not all of the organs of Napoleon are housed in his magnificent Parisian tomb. The checkered career of Laurence Sterne, the illustrious author of Tristram Shandy and of the Sentimental Journey, was ended in London, where he died in poverty, i8th March 1768. He was buried near Tyburn and the corpse, says Sir James Prior in his Life of Edmund Malone, was removed by some of the “resurrection men” and was dissected by the professor of anatomy at Cambridge. Gambetta’s post-7nortem examination, which was made on 2nd January 1883, by Professor Cornil, in the presence of a coterie of distinguished savants, afforded to his enthusiastic friends the opportunity to carry off some very select parts of his anatomy. Professor Cornil retained the viscera, M. Lannelongue secured the right arm, the wound of which was the primary cause of death. M. Duval, President of the Societe d’Anthropologie, appropriated the brain; and M. Bertin carried off the heart.^ Not a few vulgarities have been committed in the name of Science. The object of this monograph, however, is not to detail the fate of the remains of distinguished men ; but to record the activities of a few of the “ resurrectionists ” whose lives were spent in securing material for anatomical teaching, to explain the conditions which made body-snatching a necessity, and to preface the whole story with a short account of the history of anatomy. Medical science seeks the causes of numerous diseases and searches for their remedies. Its far-fluno- o ^ The Practitioner, London, September 1896, p. 288.