Eighteenth century surgeons needed bodies to try out new operations and teach anatomy, but they were limited to six corpses of hanged murderers per year for dissection. So anatomy spawned a new profession - the 'resurrection men' or body snatchers - who plundered fresh graves for bodies.
Grave robbing was so widespread that British graveyards had to be fortified against the nocturnal thieves with watchtowers, booby-traps and cages around graves. Inevitably the illicit trade in bodies for the anatomist's table got out of hand - famously Edinburgh serial killers Burke and Hare sold 16 murdered bodies to an anatomy school, forcing a change in the law.
But a dark shadow was cast over the British medical profession and it lives on today, with the scandal at Alder Hey where children's organs were plundered without consent.
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