Body Snatchers In The 1800's

Superior Essays
Body Snatchers in the 1800’s In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley our main protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, steals body parts from dissecting rooms as well as getting the parts from charnel houses during the 1800’s in order to complete his creation. What Victor was doing was called grave robbing and at the time grave robbing was a common occurrence. It was common only in part to the medical fields need for bodies. So the knowledge gained from grave robbing outweighed the wrongdoings of the act. This made grave robbing a substantial issue, but a necessary one for advancements to the medical field. Grave robbing was a common yet complex issue during the 1800’s. This was mainly caused by the rise of the medical field. Because as more and more people joined the medical field the amount of necessary bodies increased. With the increase of needed bodies, so did the popularity of grave robbing. The increase in popularity was also due to the only way of procuring a legal corpse for medical examination was through criminal executions (The Era of the Body Snatchers). Grave robbings popularity was …show more content…
Chen, Duke. 19 Jan. 2012, www.cga.ct.gov/2012/rpt/2012-R-0043.htm.
“The Era of the Body Snatchers.” Mental Floss, 16 Oct. 2014, mentalfloss.com/article/59550/era-body-snatchers.
INW, Amanda Moore. “Anatomy Act of 1832.” Intriguing History, 4 Mar. 2015, www.intriguing-history.com/anatomy-act-1832/.
Robinson, Bruce. “History - British History in Depth: Victorian Medicine - From Fluke to Theory.” BBC, BBC, 17 Feb. 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/victorian_medicine_01.shtml.
Robinson, Bruce. “History - British History in Depth: Victorian Medicine - From Fluke to Theory.” BBC, BBC, 17 Feb. 2011,

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