Redistributing Wealth

“Body-Snatching in Cincinnati,” The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, February 10, 1859.

Body snatching was a persistent problem throughout the 19th century. Despite half-hearted calls for reforms, such as this editorial, medical departments relied on supplies of fresh cadavers in their anatomy classes. In the mid-1820s prestigious schools paid as much as $25 per body (equivalent to a week of labor for a skilled journeyman). By mid-century, the going rate was as high as $35. Grave robbing frequently occurred in working- and lower-class cemeteries. Over many years, bodies were regularly stolen from the Lebanon Cemetery, the burial grounds for much of Philadelphia’s African American population, until in 1882 a wagon bound for Jefferson Hospital was found to be carrying six cadavers. It was an egregious but by no means isolated occurrence.

“Mr. Cruncher’s Friends,” Harper’s Weekly, July 30, 1859, p. 485.