Not Modern-Day Body-Snatching: The Response of the Public

Abstract

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.